Depeche Mode - Songs of Faith & Devotion [Holland Import]

Songs of Faith and Devotion is the sound of Depeche Mode plugging their synths into guitar amps and heading somewhere darker, captured here on a Holland import pressing.

Arriving in 1993 after the global triumph of Violator, the band's eighth album soaked up the grunge and alternative rock exploding in America and filtered it through their own gothic, gospel-tinged sensibility. Recorded in Madrid and Hamburg with producer Flood, the sessions were famously fraught, yet the album debuted at number one in both the UK and the US. It was also the final record to feature Alan Wilder, whose arrangements give it so much of its cinematic heft.

I Feel You bursts in on a squeal of feedback and a filthy, bluesy riff, with Dave Gahan sounding more like a rock frontman than ever. Walking in My Shoes casts a brooding, hymn-like spell around Martin Gore's searching lyrics, and Condemnation is pure gospel, all handclaps and organ. In Your Room unfurls in a slow, smoldering crescendo that ranks among their finest moments.

The whole album feels heavy with longing and redemption, sacred and profane in equal measure.

More than three decades on, it remains one of the boldest reinventions in electronic music, and a towering moment in their catalog.