Depeche Mode – Black Celebration – 180 Gram Vinyl LP – Import

Depeche Mode's most foreboding album, leaning toward the gothic, is DM at their most bleak, black-armband, and nihilistic--no doubt played over and over by countless self-loathing teens as they dyed their hair black behind locked bedroom doors. The tracks are tastefully minimalist, yet the few sounds that dominate each song have a consuming, even overwhelming feel--like a big, heavy black cloud that descends upon and surrounds listeners until their knees buckle from the weight. Rhythmically, songs like "A Question of Time" are driven with moderately paced 16th notes pounded out on synths filling out the low end. Other tracks follow the path of "Stripped," an all-out lamentfest powered by David Gahan's overproduced baritone. --Beth Bessmer

1. Black Celebration (2007 Digital Remaster)
2. Fly on the Windscreen (Final) (2007 Digital Remaster)
3. A Question of Lust (2007 Digital Remaster)
4. Sometimes (2007 Digital Remaster)
5. It Doesn't Matter Two (2007 Digital Remaster)
6. A Question of Time (2007 Digital Remaster)
7. Stripped (2007 Digital Remaster)
8. Here Is the House (2007 Digital Remaster)
9. World Full of Nothing (2007 Digital Remaster)
10. Dressed in Black (2007 Digital Remaster)
11. New Dress (2007 Digital Remaster)

Sony Music – 88985336741
UPC: 889853367412
Release Date: 10/21/2016 [Holland import]