Depeche Mode – Construction Time Again (1983/2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 48:47 minutes | 558 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Rhino/Warner Bros.
Construction Time Again is Depeche Mode’s third studio album and was released in 1983. It was engineered by Gareth Jones and recorded at John Foxx’s Garden studios in London. The album featured the band’s first use of a Synclavier; the band members used this instrument to incorporate “found” sound samples from their neighborhood, manipulating them with the Synclavier. The sounds used on the album consisted mainly of hammering anvils, clanging pipes, running water, and other similar sounds.
The full addition of Alan Wilder to Depeche Mode’s lineup created a perfect troika that would last another 11 years, as the combination of Martin Gore’s songwriting, Wilder’s arranging, and David Gahan’s singing and live star power resulted in an ever more compelling series of albums and singles. Construction Time Again, the new lineup’s first full effort, is a bit hit and miss nonetheless, but when it does hit, it does so perfectly. Right from the album’s first song, “Love in Itself,” something is clearly up; Depeche never sounded quite so thick with its sound before, with synths arranged into a mini-orchestra/horn section and real piano and acoustic guitar spliced in at strategic points. Two tracks later, “Pipeline” offers the first clear hint of an increasing industrial influence (the bandmembers were early fans of Einstürzende Neubauten), with clattering metal samples and oddly chain gang-like lyrics and vocals. The album’s clear highlight has to be “Everything Counts,” a live staple for years, combining a deceptively simple, ironic lyric about the music business with a perfectly catchy but unusually arranged blending of more metallic scraping samples and melodica amid even more forceful funk/hip-hop beats. Elsewhere, on “Shame” and “Told You So,” Gore’s lyrics start taking on more of the obsessive personal relationship studies that would soon dominate his writing. Wilder’s own songwriting contributions are fine musically, but lyrically, “preachy” puts it mildly, especially the environment-friendly “The Landscape Is Changing”.
Tracklist:
01. Depeche Mode – Love, In Itself (04:28)
02. Depeche Mode – More Than A Party (04:44)
03. Depeche Mode – Pipeline (05:54)
04. Depeche Mode – Everything Counts (04:22)
05. Depeche Mode – Two Minute Warning (04:12)
06. Depeche Mode – Shame (03:51)
07. Depeche Mode – The Landscape Is Changing (04:48)
08. Depeche Mode – Told You So (04:26)
09. Depeche Mode – And Then… (04:35)
10. Depeche Mode – Everything Counts (Extended Version) (07:22)
