Rhapsody Reviews: Depeche Mode

Suckers for pomp and survivors of circumstance, Depeche Mode have long been torn between a penchant for grandiosity and more guileless, confessional tendencies. That tension has fueled their music since at least the days of Some Great Reward, with its mix of leering outbursts and fetal desire, through succeeding decades, in which they mastered a swaggering brand of stadium glam that drew its strength from an almost Pentecostal obsession with sin and redemption. DM revisit well familiar territory on Sounds of the Universe, the band's 12th studio album in a 28-year career, but they do it with the kind of focus and even comfort that sometimes faltered on recent albums.

Even at their best, DM have sometimes sounded like they were slogging through the motions, dutifully fulfilling modern-rock expectations with swollen arrangements and a tumescent suggestiveness. But on Sounds of the Universe, they make doing what they do seem somehow effortless. The standout songs are here in spades; after a dozen listens, virtually every track on the record feels not just familiar but almost inevitable, a piece of the canon that was just waiting to fall into place.

Make no mistake, DM stick to their comfort zone, turning former quirks into habitual gestures. Tumbleweed guitars, badges of a long-running Wild West fetish, bring familiar grit and snarl to "Miles Away / The Truth Is." The closing "Corrupt" shuffles in on a triplet rhythm recycled from "Personal Jesus," while "In Chains" is but the latest installment in a quarter-century interest in bondage. But the band, working again with Playing the Angel producer Ben Hillier, has stripped back the production to focus on details: The synth-pop of their very earliest albums braces the whole record like a scaffolding, but it never feels retro. Instead, analog synths -- buzzing, growling, lush -- form a skeleton that's filled in with a warm, rock 'n' roll heart.

It sounds, in fact, like Depeche Mode distilled down to their essence: cleansed, purified even. The album's most surprising moment might be Dave Gahan's hymn-like confession halfway through -- "Peace will come to me" -- though not for the subject matter (the erstwhile wastrel and his companions have long been looking for refuge). It's that, despite the future-tense lyrics, Depeche Mode sound like they've already made their peace -- with their pasts, with their unshakable habits, with the impossible expectations placed on them as alt-rock icons.For almost any other band with such a volatile sound and history, peace would be the death knell.But on Sounds of the Universe, the band's maturity is like that of their beloved vintage synthesizers, sounding richer as their idiosyncratic circuitry settles and smolders.