Memento Mori – “remember that you die” – would have been an apt album title for black leather synth rockers Depeche Mode at any point, but it feels especially powerful right now. Conceived during the early part of the pandemic, when death was looming in most people’s minds, the band’s fifteenth album was also haunted by the fact that, as they hit their sixties, chief songwriter Martin Gore was about to be the same age as his stepfather, who raised him, was when he died.
Then founding member Andy “Fletch” Fletcher passed away suddenly, age 60, from an aortic dissection last May. Like The Rolling Stones losing Charlie Watts or The Who losing John Entwistle, Fletch lacked star quality next to mercurial Gore or sepulchral singer Dave Gahan, but his absence alters the dynamic considerably. Without their buffer, the often remote surviving pair have found themselves working together more closely. Others let into the fold this time include James Ford, the sometime Arctic Monkeys producer who also worked on the last Depeche Mode album, experimental Italian producer Marta Salogni, and Psychedelic Furs frontman Richard Butler, who co-wrote four songs.
