When Depeche Mode released Playing the Angel last year, fans and critics alike gleefully rejoiced in what they saw as the band's return to form. While its album art certainly fits with the band's post-Violator iconography of the last 15 years, Playing the Angel was peppered with sonics that recalled Violator and everything predating it--the band's work of the '80s, which launched the group into the international spotlight in the first place.
Was the Depeche Mode of old back? Not really. Depeche Mode, which plays the Hard Rock on April 30, never left--they just took a long excursion into the moody electronic-pop experimentations of the '90s, and now they're back for this glory lap.
Old-school fans will be surprised to learn it's been 25 years since DM's Sire debut, 1981's Speak & Spell, and its singles "Just Can't Get Enough" and "Dreaming of Me." These were songs that changed music, with the help of the band's contemporaries in Britain's and later America's New Romantic movements. And ever since, the synthesizer hasn't sounded quite the same.