Depeche Mode - Ultra

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Free Music Notes for Ultra

Free Music Review: An Ultra-masterpiece
Hit: 5 Stars

Dark, frightening, eerie, and mature are the words to describe the mood of this album. The blurry black, purple and white colors in the background perfect suit the overall mood of the CD. The black and dark purple portray the darkness of the lyrics, and of the music. The lighter colors portray the sense of hope, redemption, recovery, and moving forward after near demise. These are just how I see them. This album makes me think of running through a severe rainstorm and embracing its darkness and intensity. Thats how I describe the albums mood.

This album is a departure from the heavily guitar driven style of Songs Of Faith & Devotion and more of a return to the keyboard based pop of their signature but maintaining some of the SOFAD elements. Overall though, this album has a completely different mood from SOFAD or Violator or the ones before them. Depeche once again morphed their style and for me, I like change even though a small part of me yearns for a Black Celebration Part II. This album is definitely an ULTRA masterpiece. Theres some sense of joy and happiness meshed in with the angry, depressed atmosphere of the songs. This album is in my opinion, the extreme opposite of Speak & Spell. Every song on this essential CD is at least a 4 and a half but Home, Its No Good, Freestate, and Insight are by far the best on this CD with Insight being the best of all. Theres plenty to find in every song on this album.

Barrel Of A Gun starts things off with a guitar-driven, and menacing song that SOFAD fans will more than likely enjoy. This song almost sounds like a Nine Inch Nails track at times. The Love Thieves is a jazzier, and trippier song that foreshadows the lighter direction that the group would take on their next album four years later. I like this songs odd chord structure. Home starts with a somewhat scary melody and a screeching sound effect that reminds me of a ghost screaming in the distance. It starts as a dark, and disturbing song with a dark and eerie mood and becomes a warm, orchestral song. I love the climax with the rock guitars and the orchestras coming together at the climax. Martin Gore has never sounded better on this track in his entire career. Its No Good radiates with its pulsating bass, and punching beats. This song from perspective is about how searching for love is just in vain Dont say you love me, cause its no good. Uselink is a cute electronic instrumental. Useless is a definite SOFAD-esque song with a somewhat of a Soundgarden-esque sound. This song reminds me somewhat of Black Hole Sun from years ago. Great song. Sister Of Night is a beautiful and textural song with a bitter and dark mood. I like the strange guitar, or keyboard sound effects. Jazz Thieves is another cute and instrumental. We then head into one of my favorite tracks on the CD Freestate. This song is one of the best songs of Depeche Modes career. It starts off with a dark and eerie melody and some gorgeous 12 string guitars and becomes an intense and brooding song with rumbling beats and keyboards that remind of Enjoy The Silence from Violator. When I play this song, I can imagine myself tangoing with a woman dressed in black in a severe thunderstorm on an open city plaza. ;-) The ending is really cool too. I wished that this song wouldve been released as a single. The Bottom Line is a bittersweet song with a bit of a country flavor but still being very dark and bitter in mood. The closing track Insight is by far my favorite song on this CD. It starts as an ominous electronic number with a dark black & white mood, and then becomes an uplifting electronic Gospel influenced song with a sense of hope and looking towards the future. Wait and minute, its not the closer. The real closer on this CD is actually a hidden track called Junior Painkiller. This short instrumental is an odd and bizarre song. Its a great song but Insight shouldve been the closer. This is a good instrumental nonetheless.

Ultra was a vital outing for DM, not only because it was great but because it showed that even with Wilders absence, they could still crank out the good songs. While I enjoy Exciter a lot, Ultra in my opinion a sense of edge, heaviness, the darkness, and a bit of fright, that I feel was missing from the 2001 release. For me, Depeche Mode shines when they make dark, frightening, electronically intense songs than simply mellow, joyous songs but maybe its just because I embrace dark music.

Alan Wilders departure couldve spelled the end of Depeche Mode or if they carried on, they couldve used every excuse to put out a dud of an album or even disbanded. Instead the threesome readjusted to their status as a trio, carried on and put out a masterpiece.

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