Albums by this artist

Exciter (2001)

Depeche Mode

Exciter

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» PIERO SCARUFFI | STAFF WRITER

Depeche Mode Exciter Reprise, 2001 RiYL: The Cure, Pet Shop Boys, New Order

If you like Depeche Mode, the problems with Exciter are simply that there is no theme to it (no, it is not eclectic, it is just erratic) and that there is no song to remember. If you don't like Depeche Mode, you know that every Depeche Mode album is, first and foremost, a concentration of cliches, and this one is no exception, except that this time songwriter Martin Gore was running out of old tricks and had to stretch the palette a little bit.

The ballads -- the melodramatic "Breathe" and the subdued "When The Body Speaks" -- sort of mark the territory. Within that range, the dance-floor locomotion of "I Feel Loved," the electronica a la mode of "Dream On," the suave, Enya-esque soundscape of "Goodnite Lovers" tell us what they have been listening to in the four years since 1997's Ultra. "Free Love" and "Shine" seem to mimic their old sound, for the sake of the fans.

By the standards of their albums, here they are taking big chances. For them, something like "The Dead Of Night" is industrial music (Trent Reznor eats this for breakfast). The instrumentals "Lovetheme"and "Easy Tiger" constitute nice new age music (possibly their future as individual artists). But, for the first time in a long time, one can actually listen to David Gahan's lyrics. Indeed, on Exciter, he has rarely sounded less moronic.

Now that everybody admits their previous albums were not as great as originally advertised, we can claim that this is no worse. That doesn't make them Beethovens, and it doesn't make this one a masterpiece.

PIERO SCARUFFI | Piero Scaruffi runs the exhaustive music database Scaruffi.com. A native of Italy, he has also been praised for his work on the General Theory of Relativity, formal theories of the mind, and artificial intelligence. And no, we aren't making that up.