Artist: Gahan, Dave
Label: Mute Records
Release: 2007
Rating: 3/5
Dave Gahan’s second studio album, “Hourglass”, is a twist you wouldn’t really expect from a musician who belongs to a big band and goes solo. Usually, when your name is big, the reason for doing it is to express something strictly your own, something the artistic space inside the mother band simply doesn’t allow. No doubt Dave had something similar in mind before he started recording “Hourglass” at all, at least if we go by his solo debut “Paper Monsters”, which was a different beast, and far bolder and more experimental for Dave.
“Hourglass” sounds a whole lot like what we hear from Depeche Mode today, or rather what the band has been serving up since 1993 or so. It’s obvious Dave picked up some commercial thinking in that band, so the guitars that led the way on “Paper Monsters” (a courageous move that critics undeniably welcomed) got pushed aside. Up front now are electronic samples and keyboards in all their familiar rainbow shapes, and none of it brings anything special, new, provocative or daringly fresh that would shift the Earth’s axis. Everything on Hourglass gravitates toward one fact: “Playing The Angel” (2005), which, unlike the pitch-black “Exciter” (2001), breathed a ray of “Violator” (1990) light back into Depeche Mode (the hit Precious), earned high praise and approval from the critical mass. Depeche Mode were back in the crowd’s focus, and in that sense “Hourglass” is a logical move that chases similar recognition.
Don’t get me wrong. This album is production-wise tremendously rich and polished. It offers exactly what Dave Gahan does best. His lower-pitched vocals are once again perfectly put to use. He convincingly wanders “lost” through a collage of gloomy, interwoven modern industrial grooves, with the occasional repeating patterns of alternatively minimalized guitar “smears”, through questions of lost loves, life, death, religion, redemption and reaffirming oneself. And once again his voice clearly fills, from a sober analytical point of view, that unbridgeable chasm between the eternal provocativeness of electronics and classic, organic-leaning sounds.
Dave is a known master and he commands the craft he perfected to a T in Depeche Mode, which is why his approach works in such a singular way. But that singularity only gets you so far this time: we can talk about high quality, both in mood and in compositional execution, which with a bit of polishing would make a great lever for the next Depeche Mode album, and that’s a kind of Pyrrhic victory. The gloomy opening of the album with Saw Something, the similarly obscurely wrapped soft techno lament Endless, or Insoluble, mixed with the rays of light from the anthemic Kingdom, Use You and A Little Lie, all confirm that the guy can find a melody written perfectly for his (sadly, once again) Depeche Mode skin. Deeper And Deeper is the real and only surprise on “Hourglass”. Gahan is twistedly snappy, aggressive and distortedly wheezing in it, and all in all incredibly annoying. More experiments like this definitely wouldn’t have hurt “Hourglass”. 21 Days pulls toward gospel-ing again, first caught on “Songs Of Faith And Devotion”, with that typically stripped-down pinch of guitar that colleagues elsewhere use only for make-up “touch-ups”, but Depeche Mode use all over again. Ah, I’m repeating myself.
A moment in the artist’s mental state, which conditions his current creative inspiration for musical expression and the need to seek free creative space outside the concrete-poured rules dictated by living together inside a big band, for better or worse, but mostly dreamy songs of mourning set in that sampling, which practically doesn’t stray even one step from the Depeche Mode guidelines, comes across as far too routine and calculated across the album to talk about anything special or unheard on “Hourglass”. This is an album Depeche Mode fans have had at home for ages already, and they love it.
Lineup
Dave Gahan – vocals
Tony Hoffer – guitar, mix
John Frusciante – guitar
Niko Stoessl – guitar, backing vocals
Kevin Murphy – cello
Karl Ritter – dobro
Jenni Muldaur – backing vocals
Andrew Phillpott – guitar, bass guitar
Christian Eigner – drums
Production
Dave Gahan, Andrew Phillpott & Christian Eigner
Tracklist
1. Saw Something (5:14)
2. Kingdom (4:34)
3. Deeper and Deeper (4:34)
4. 21 Days (4:35)
5. Miracles (4:38)
6. Use You (4:48)
7. Insoluble (4:57)
8. Endless (5:47)
9. A Little Lie (4:53)
10. Down (4:34)
Album length: 48.38
BONUS DVD:
1. Hourglass – A Short Film (17:52)
2. Kingdom (promotional video)(4:33)
3. Hourglass – The Studio Sessions (20:03)
3a. Saw Something
3b. Miracles
3c. Kingdom
3d. A Little Lie
4. Endless – video montage (3:44)
