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Mar 21, 2013Depeche Mode have dropped the best album of their career.
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Mar 21, 2013Delta Machine is the strongest album the group has put out this century, brushing up against the locked-in grooves of the group’s late-‘80s crest that began with 1984’s Some Great Reward and ran through the revolutionary classic Violator in 1990.
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Mar 22, 2013New album Delta Machine is about more than simple fulfillment--going one further to actively excite, as it lays the template for some of the band’s most vigorous, energetic material in 15 years.
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Mar 21, 2013Ultimately, Delta Machine is a record full of terrific moments, reminding you of why you fell in love with Depeche Mode in the first place.
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Q MagazineApr 9, 2013They're still here and they're still very good. [May 2013, p.93]
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Mar 28, 2013While it could have been clipped of a couple of tracks, overall the devil is in the glitchy, Fever-ish new details--and Dave has rarely sounded better.
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Mar 25, 2013The freshness comes through in the delivery, which is as loose as electronic music permits, delivered with the bluesy rawness that frontman Dave Gahan wanted from the album.
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Mar 25, 2013This isn’t a band going through the motions, it’s a band going through a violent and explosive rebirth, a return to form that’s almost unparalleled.
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Mar 22, 2013In 2013, if rock is going to survive, it surely has to encompass the bleeps and beats of electro veterans who sound like the future is still catching up with them.
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Mar 27, 2013The new album finds vocalist Dave Gahan and songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Martin Gore refining some familiar sounds and trying out some new wrinkles.
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Mar 27, 2013While at the end of the day the formula still works, it just isn’t as fresh as it once was to demand immediate repeat listens. But Delta Machine does deserve repeat listens.
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Mar 26, 2013Delta Machine is best taken as that 13-song slab, one that is a near-perfect summation of the band those skinny teenagers who regularly showed up on children’s mornings programs have grown up into.
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Mar 26, 2013Delta celebrates brooding faith and slippery solace without scrimping on Depeche's trademark blackstrobe punishment.
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Mar 25, 2013Delta Machine, the band's 13th album, feeds off this negative energy and winds like a snake the whole time, slithering through a well-written (ten songs from Martin Gore with three coming from Gahan) and lusciously recorded set of serpentine siren songs.
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Mar 25, 2013It’s not a huge stride in a new direction, but its incorporation of new sounds into the established blueprint sounds like a band both mature and renewed.
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Mar 25, 2013Another reasonably strong effort for a band that's managed to get wise without growing too old.
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Mar 26, 2013Despite Gore’s lovely choirboy harmonies, ["Heaven"] feels like electro-soul dragged through quicksand. Thankfully, the rest of the album staves off such dullness with a potent combination of moody programming, focused songwriting, and subtle velocity.
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Apr 23, 2013Despite many good songs on this album, you will definitely get a sense that Depeche Mode is in a holding pattern.
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Apr 15, 2013Considering the odds, it shows an animated and still vigorous trio worthy of its semi-legendary status.
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MojoApr 9, 2013Song titles like Soothe My Soul and The Child Inside suggest phoned-in conventionality, but there are edgy moments here. [May 2013, p.85]
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UncutMar 29, 2013In spite (or maybe because) of their flaws, there's a vivid presence to tracks like "Heaven" and "My Little Universe" that fans will flock to and onlookers can't help but smile at. [May 2013, p.69]
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Mar 25, 2013Surprises are few and what Delta Machine lacks is one big, arena-ready, fist-in-the-air synthpop stormer.
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Mar 21, 2013On their 13th album, Depeche Mode are as hamstrung as ever by their refusal to admit even a chink of light into their world of gloom.... The flip side of the coin is that the austere music that accompanies all this darkness is often very beautiful.
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Mar 22, 2013Depeche Mode click here slightly more often than not. [Mar-Apr 2013, p.91]
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Apr 8, 2013Where this album tries for a harder, more adventurous sound, they’re still stuck with one leg in leather trousers.
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Apr 4, 2013Depeche Mode’s biggest crime is that they're just a bit boring.
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Mar 28, 2013There is not a single moment of shock or freshness on Delta Machine, and it's enormously frustrating to hear what was once a band of futurists so deeply mired in resisting change.
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Mar 27, 2013It’s hard to imagine anyone other than extreme DM reactionaries finding anything here essential besides the abovementioned tracks [“Soft Touch / Raw Nerve” and “Soothe My Soul”], the stirring “Secret To the End,” and the mid-tempo “Broken.
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Oct 4, 2013The camp is layered on thick, just as it always was, yet this time it crosses the thin line these electro pioneers once walked with ease.
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Mar 25, 2013As it stands, it's another tiresome release studded with a few gems.
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Mar 25, 2013It blows hot and cold.
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Mar 22, 2013Depeche Mode's weakest album in some while.
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Apr 2, 2013Depeche Mode has been an easy target for complaints of stagnancy, and, indeed, the band seemed to stop progressing in the mid-’90s like a child with a pot-a-day habit. And, Delta Machine is another example of this.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 101 out of 125
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Mixed: 18 out of 125
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Negative: 6 out of 125
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Mar 30, 2013
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Mar 26, 2013
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Apr 6, 2013