Sunday Music: Songs of Faith And Devotion by Depeche Mode

This is a special Zeigler family household edition of Sunday Music, at least in the selection of the source music. Credit to my wife for getting me to fully appreciate the oeuvre of Depeche Mode in the past few years. Their artistic evolution is pretty mind-blowing, and when this particular album took over the stereo recently, I found myself with a lot of thoughts (and questions) about why.

Depeche Mode’s Songs of Faith and Devotion has been dominating my kitchen counter conversations lately. It’s the band’s 8th album, released in early 1993, and it marked a shift in tone and style for the band. The album also marked a shift in success, hitting number one in the UK and on the US Billboard 200.

But the album is… different. It’s not quite like albums 1-7, and those changes are worth exploring. In ‘93, it didn’t have my attention, especially given the other music that was fresh at the time. But in ‘24, for what was originally going to be a Violator review, I’m blown away by the multitudes this record contains.

Here’s the video version, but read on if curious, because like all of the reviews, I’ve got NOTES here people!

First, a little music theory is essential to talking about why this album is so interesting.

The language of music has a whole host of terms you can more or less intuitively understand even if you don’t know music. They all have simple or complex continuums attached to them. Simple stuff makes sense to a kid. Complex stuff ranges all the way up to “isn’t this just noise” but contains all points in between too. If you think of them as scales, more measurement-type scales than musical scales (which are… oh, Nevermind), it helps.

Rhythm is the beat, and if or how it leans in either direction (swinging, straight, drunken, etc.). Harmony is how notes stack up when played at the same time (“chords” - popular or “jazzy”). Melody is how notes string out over time (the part you sing along to, easily or not-so-easily).

It gets (only slightly) more advanced from there. Dynamics refer to the louder and softer parts of rhythm, harmony, melody, usually in combination but sometimes felt in isolation. Frequency refers to the highs, mids, and lows presented by the instruments responsible for all the other parts. It helps us explain why a heart monitor in the hospital doesn’t have to be loud and still can cut straight through the background noise, and why the bass in the trunk of that car that drove by can rattle the glasses in your cabinet.

Lyrics have a spot too. They play with the combination of all these things and can even create alternate meta-structures or relationships between them.

That’s it for the theory, but hold it in your mind as we walk through this record. Those scales, their all about different forms of tension and release. It’s really cool if you start to hear them (maybe I’ll do another post about this, but) let’s talk about the record. 

Depeche Mode, from the pretty much all synth Speak and Spell first record, to the mostly synth 1990 classic Violator, featured a lot of… synthesizers. They were an electronic music band, so, yeah. The classic story is that it was hard to take a bunch of drums and guitars and amps from town to town in the UK, but you could get on the train with a keyboard easily enough. The mediums are always the messages I guess.

Songs of Faith and Devotion came out just when grunge was breaking all the way into the mainstream. It also came out when the band was feeling their successes and also their creativity working itself into ruts. It’s what happens to successful acts that reach an inspirational limit. How could it not happen? So, in an effort to find a new spark, the band linked up with super producer Flood, rented a house in Spain, and set out to changing up as much of their process as they could to get the creative juices flowing, again.

When you press play on Songs of Faith and Devotion, you feel the tension changes across each of the areas mentioned above something extra. Depeche Mode unlocked a whole new level of musical language awareness. It might not be their creative high water mark, but it is their master’s thesis.

The album opens with a screech (see: frequency above). It’s either a proverbial needle scratch on their careers or a synthetic tire screech of the band peeling off onto a new road.

The first thing you notice is “I Feel You” has actual drums. Rock drums. They’re quantized, so it’s not like they went all free jazz on us, but in combination with the real guitar riff behind it, there’s an almost bluesy, electronic-adjacent opening. This is a sonic departure.

There’s no formal harmony at the start. The only multi-note harmony we start to get, which feels stretched out, is how the echoey vocal elongates the melodic line against the guitar. It’s a very open space feel, and the song builds from there.

Note how the frequencies start to fill in, right in line with the harmonies, by the time you get about 45ish seconds in. Note how they rhythm drops in to an almost recognizable electro-rock shuffle by just over a minute.

Depeche Mode is going to play with these elements in ways they never had on a prior album for the next 9 tracks. It’s actually pretty magical to take in. The synths, real instruments, and sheer spatial awareness of all the variables is stunning.

On “Walking in My Shoes” the hollowed mid-range of the frequencies gets almost flipped on and off in a creative dynamic way that would make the Pixies’ (or Nirvana’s) loud-soft guitar dynamics blush.

What Depeche Mode achieves that the other mid-90s acts did not, is the sustained simmer. This is how you know they’re not just biting Soundgarden or something (a common criticism is that they were trying to “meet” the more popular styles for sake of relevance on this record, but I’d say it’s more of a respectful influence executed to perfection on their part).

“Condemnation” is proof of the not grunge biting stance. Now, I’m not going to lie, I do get a hint of David Bowie doing Aerosmith’s “What It Takes” on this track, but listen to the ways the song handles melody, harmony, rhythm, and space on all the levels. Incredible uses of tension are on display. Plus, it’s use of lyrics and human vocalizations on the synth pads add a whole other layer to the song’s meaning, and the full-album arc. Genius level stuff.

“Mercy In You” is a voodoo-child slight synth return. The key here, again, is they don’t lean into anybody else’s approach, they just take some influence and then carve their lane. The chorus bit right up to shy of the two minute mark, with the instrument sound shifts, they’re some of my favorite sonic textures on this whole record.

The intro to “Judas” sounds like its ripped out of a movie landscape. Feel how much space is created in the frequency spectrum for the voice to come in. Play it on headphones so you can hear how that widens up into the beginning of the song. The real payoff comes after the drop around 3:47, when they get weird synthy, kind of like the good old days.

“In Your Room” takes its time to build without losing the simmer again. By now you’re probably anticipating how they’ll open up space in your speakers/headphones. The bass guitar here is so restrained in the mix. But the show stealer is the harmony, with some twists and turns as surprises in what chord shows up next, that you have to admire. That’s probably more advanced than we need to get here. Stick around to enjoy the classic fadeout they used on this one.

“Get Right With Me” makes exceptional use of stereo panning, you want to hear this one with headphones. Also note the voice sitting in the middle, while it, and the other instruments shimmer around it. As the song’s rhythm holds, but the melody, harmony, and dynamics find their shapes, it’s really cool to let wash over you.

That redemptive, almost gospel vibe, you get it with the album title by now, right? Good. Just checking in. You can read the lyrics on your own time. They’re better than you may be thinking.

“Rush” does itself a disservice by allowing itself to exist adjacent to the more aggressive versions of this pseudo industrial style in the era it was released. As a standalone (you know, without Nine Inch Nails, or Ministry, or any of that stuff around), it’s pretty cool because of it’s very deliberate restraint. Have you seen Martin Gore’s outfits? It makes sense, but don’t think about it more than you have to.

We’re in the home stretch now. Is “One Caress” Depeche Mode’s “Last Caress” meets “Eleanor Rigby”? Watch what they do with the rhythm on it. Note the tension in the accents at different parts, from varied sources. Then listen for the tension in the counter-melodies and harmonies. It’s a wonderful arrangement even if it walks a bizarre line for how they’d perform it live (what is going on here? Kind of a karaoke Cats at an S&M club vibe… so many questions).

“Higher Love” is a perfect closer. If the album started with a surprise on how they’d press rhythm, melody, harmony, dynamics, and frequencies in fresh artistic directions, they go out on a sprawling exploration of all these themes, one more time. The vocal synth layers alone, and how everything nests together over the rhythmic bed the backing track creates, it’s hypnotic and awake, all at once. I appreciate the sonic-dissipation at the end too. It’s just cool.

Depeche Mode’s Songs of Faith and Devotion is a record that’s gotten better over time for me. It somehow both works better as a standalone, without the background noise of 1993, and relative to their rest of their catalogue up to this point. You can hear the progress and the directions they’re expanding.

In a world where so many artists can’t figure out what to do next, or how to stay interesting let alone relevant, this is one we’ll go back to over and over again in my house.

Do you know the record? Love it? Hate it? Think it was a flop? Have music theory takes? Let me know!