'Fragile Tension' is perhaps the most insubstantial track the band have ever produced: even Dave Gahan's desperate over-emoting cannot rescue it. It would, in fact, have been better swapped with actual closing track 'Corrupt', which shows Martin Gore in his lyrical element, concocting some deliciously perverse lines over a very Modesque shuffle beat. Opener 'In Chains', despite boasting a superb Radiophonic-evoking precursive fanfare that sounds like a Dalek control centre being coaxed to the point of orgasm, is the kind of song that the band habitually choose to close their albums, on a slightly lacklustre, pointlessly wistful note. Also, the stock spiritual themes that run through his lyrics are undermined by an ambiguous mystical streak this time around, which is vaguely expressed whenever it crops up and doesn't sit well with accounts of firmly human tribulations. Mostly these elicit an inward grimace, but the sudden arrival of "I am walking love incarnate / Look at the frequencies at which I vibrate" provides particular amusement. There's also the usual quota of excruciating lyrical clichés, often courtesy of Gore's obsessive desire to rhyme every couplet. The 'mature' vein of their other post-millennial albums continues largely unabated - a grimy, swampy, mid-paced tempo predominates - and there's little genuine exuberance, a quality that seemed to grind to a halt during their post- Songs of Faith And Devotion meltdown. Verses too often bring the promise of excitement that choruses subsequently fail to deliver, almost as if the band are reigning in their ardor. More than any producer since Daniel Miller formulated the classic multi-layered, sample-drenched Mode style of the 80s, he's forged a framework for Martin Gore's rigidly-structured songs to operate within. Ben Hillier has been invited back to produce after striking a rapport with the band during his work on 2005 album Playing the Angel. Brilliance is there, though it might not be quick to reveal itself. The truth is that it's a fitful album and at times strangely subdued. Will they succeed this time in stimulating the release of a surge of pent-up admiration? Depeche Mode, however, have to do much more to arouse critical appreciation from a public that these days largely shuns their uniquely provocative appeal. It's an uncompromising track boasting a blackly humorous lyric that, had it been written by Neil Tennant, might have been lauded as a work of ironic pop genius. Depeche Mode have teased and tortured us with 'Wrong', the magnificent first release from their twelfth studio album Sounds of the Universe. There's a thin line between climax and anticlimax, between realisation and tantalisation.
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