Before
Depeche Mode
began recording their new album, the group’s guitarist and chief
songwriter, Martin Gore, went out and bought a bunch of vintage gear.
“It’s helped to shape the sound of the album,” says Gore. “The sounds
we are making are more akin to stuff we did in the late 1980s, around
Violator.
That was a real creative high for us.” The group has been recording off
and on for nine months in New York and in a studio near Gore’s Santa
Barbara, California, home. On its last release, 2005’s
Playing the Angel,
singer Dave Gahan contributed songs for the first time in Depeche
Mode’s 25-year career. So far, he’s given four new songs to this
currently untitled set. “I think it’s natural,” says Gore — who was the
group’s sole songwriter for most of its career. Gore says it’s too
early to discuss specific tracks, but he says the album has a strong
“spiritual feel.”