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Memento Mori by Depeche Mode

27 March 2023 By Avinash Meetoo Leave a Comment

Depeche Mode released its latest album, Memento Mori, on Friday 24 March. During the day, I started listening to the songs on my way to work and I was quite happy. Happier than with some of the previous albums to be honest. Interestingly, I felt that the second half of the album was stronger than the first half but, because I was commuting, I knew I needed to give the album a proper listen before deciding.

The next day, after lunch on Saturday 25 March 2023 at 14:00, Christina, Kyan and I properly listened to Momento Mori from the first song to the last. We got the album on TIDAL (FLAC 48KHz 24bit, MQA 96KHz) and listened on our dream Hi-Fi setup.

During the 50 minutes, I took some notes and rated the songs:

“My Cosmos Is Mine”: Industrial. Lots of reverb. Atmospheric. Good way to start a concept album. 7/10.
“Wagging Tongue”: Organic. Arpeggiated. Simple lyrics. Not too profound. 6/10.
“Ghosts Again”: Anthemic Depeche Mode song. Good singing. Nice bridge. 8/10.
“Don’t Say You Love Me”: A much slower It’s No Good. Orchestral. “I’ll be the punchline of course.” 7/10.
“My Favourite Stranger”. Another anthemic DM song. Recognizable baseline (Fade to grey?). Slow electro. Heavy distortion. 8/10.
“Soul with Me”: Generic DM ballad. Martin Gore singing. Good chorus. 7/10.
“Caroline’s Monkey”: Starts like Dream On. Chorus could be better. Sometimes… and chord. 7/10.
“Before We Drown”: Fantastic song, music and lyrics. Restrained voice. Beautiful electro. Fantastic strings. 9/10.
“People Are Good”: Kraftwerk / DM symbiosis. Crooner-kind of singing. Effective electro. 8/10.
“Always You”: Nice Grahan ballad. Very electronic and organic. Recognizable. Repetitive. 7/10.
“Never Let Me Go”: Dark Depeche Mode. Great music and lyrics. Orchestration good. Guitar distortion. 8/10.
“Speak to Me”: Tranquil outro. Easy way to end the album. Very predictable. 6/10.

Overall, I gave the album 7.5/10. In fact, I like the album very much as it is sounds much more electronic than previous albums (which were too rock-oriented for my own taste). One criticism is that some of the songs use way too much saturation and distortion but this looks like to be fashionable these days. I wonder what would happen if the next album (if made…) was produced by someone like Deadmau5? Will Depeche Mode then have a Violator 2 album? Who knows?

Here are my favourite five songs as reflected in the ratings I gave:

Ghosts Again
My Favourite Stranger
Before We Drown
People Are Good
Never Let Me Go

At some point, I will have to restrict this to the three songs I like most to add to my Top 50 Depeche Mode songs (which will then have 53 songs). Give me a few days to make up my mind.

Enjoy Timeless, the TV show, while you can

19 March 2023 By Avinash Meetoo Leave a Comment

Christina, Kyan and I have just finished watching the last episode of Timeless, a TV show which ran from 2016 to 2018.

Here is the premise as copied from Wikipedia:

When Eastern European-based ex-National Security Agency asset turned terrorist Garcia Flynn and his group of terrorists steal an experimental time machine, Lucy Preston, a history professor, Wyatt Logan, a United States Army Delta Force Master Sergeant and Rufus Carlin, an engineer and programmer, are tasked with capturing Flynn. They soon learn that Flynn plans to rewrite history and that each of them has a connection to his plan as well as the mysterious organisation known as Rittenhouse that funded the machine’s development.

We liked Timeless and we gave the show an overall 7/10.

For me, the best thing about Timeless were the characters which were all really likeable (which is quite rare).

In particular, Abigail Spencer as Lucy Preston was really nice from beginning to end. She’s a university history teacher and remains so throughout the show. She didn’t become a badass and this is true to reality.

I also liked Claudia Doumit as Jiya Marri who was a small character at the beginning but gained in importance and relevance as the show progressed. In some ways, she is a more dramatic character than the others and I didn’t expect that.

But, for me, the best character might be Goran Visnjic as Garcia Flynn who, initially, was perceived as the bad guy but who, in reality, was far from being one. From episode 1 to the finale, every scene he was was intense. He is a good actor.

We watched Timeless on Netflix and today is the last date it is going to be on that platform.

My Top 50 Depeche Mode songs

21 February 2023 By Avinash Meetoo 1 Comment

I discovered Depeche Mode in 1985 and, for the past four decades, I have been a massive fan of the group and electronic music in general.

Last night, I gave it a go and I selected the 50 Depeche Mode songs I like the most. There are a lot of songs which I didn’t choose despite loving them but I tried to keep things balanced by choosing three songs from each album, except for some seminal albums such as Violator where I had to choose more than three songs. For good measure, I also chose Shake The Disease which, for some reason, was never part of any album but only released as a single.

At the end, this is what I consider to be my Top 50 Depeche Mode songs ever:

Just Can’t Get Enough (from the 1981 album Speak & Spell)
Photographic (from the 1981 album Speak & Spell)
Tora! Tora! Tora! (from the 1981 album Speak & Spell)
Leave in Silence (from the 1982 album A Broken Frame)
My Secret Garden (from the 1982 album A Broken Frame)
See You (from the 1982 album A Broken Frame)
Everything Counts (from the 1983 album Construction Time Again)
Love, in Itself (from the 1983 album Construction Time Again)
Told You So (from the 1983 album Construction Time Again)
Blasphemous Rumours (from the 1984 album Some Great Reward)
Master and Servant (from the 1984 album Some Great Reward)
People Are People (from the 1984 album Some Great Reward)
Shake the Disease (from the 1985 album Shake the Disease (Single))
A Question of Time (from the 1986 album Black Celebration)
Black Celebration (from the 1986 album Black Celebration)
Stripped (from the 1986 album Black Celebration)
Behind the Wheel (from the 1987 album Music for the Masses)
Never Let Me Down Again (from the 1987 album Music for the Masses)
Strangelove (from the 1987 album Music for the Masses)
Enjoy the Silence (from the 1990 album Violator)
Halo (from the 1990 album Violator)
Personal Jesus (from the 1990 album Violator)
World in My Eyes (from the 1990 album Violator)
I Feel You (from the 1993 album Songs of Faith and Devotion)
In Your Room (from the 1993 album Songs of Faith and Devotion)
One Caress (from the 1993 album Songs of Faith and Devotion)
Walking in My Shoes (from the 1993 album Songs of Faith and Devotion)
Barrel of a Gun (from the 1997 album Ultra)
Home (from the 1997 album Ultra)
It’s No Good (from the 1997 album Ultra)
Useless (from the 1997 album Ultra)
Dream On (from the 2001 album Exciter)
Freelove (from the 2001 album Exciter)
Goodnight Lovers (from the 2001 album Exciter)
I Feel Loved (from the 2001 album Exciter)
John the Revelator (from the 2005 album Playing the Angel)
Precious (from the 2005 album Playing the Angel)
Suffer Well (from the 2005 album Playing the Angel)
In Chains (from the 2009 album Sounds of the Universe)
Peace (from the 2009 album Sounds of the Universe)
Wrong (from the 2009 album Sounds of the Universe)
Heaven (from the 2013 album Delta Machine)
My Little Universe (from the 2013 album Delta Machine)
Should Be Higher (from the 2013 album Delta Machine)
Cover Me (from the 2017 album Spirit)
Going Backwards (from the 2017 album Spirit)
Where’s the Revolution (from the 2017 album Spirit)
Before We Drown (from the 2023 album Memento Mori)
Ghosts Again (from the 2023 album Memento Mori)
Never Let Me Go (from the 2023 album Memento Mori)

This is more than four hours of pure enjoyment.

Take a nice scotch. Relax. Close your eyes. Marvel.