Sounds of the Universe

Few bands have aged as gracefully as Depeche Mode. From their 1997 comeback album, "Ultra," to the present, DM has continued to offer shimmering, masterfully crafted electro pop with enough hooks to continually grab radio attention while retaining lyrics dark and complex enough to stimulate the mind as well. They might be one of the few groups likely to make you dance and think at the same time.

"Sounds of the Universe," the newest record by DM, continues the fine tradition cemented by "Playing the Angel," the band's preceding album, offering intricate, spacey soundscapes augmented by singer Dave Gahan's haunting, stentorian vocals and guitarist/primary songwriter Martin L. Gore's alternately soul-searching and soul-baring lyrics. Songs like "Wrong," "Perfect" and "Little Soul" find the band exploring common territory: a vague sense of impending doom, the pain of what could have been, love as both a state of grace and damnation, etc. However, the words on "Universe" may be DM's most direct effort to date. Even with confessional songs like "Precious" on "Angel," the numbers here often find Gore abandoning pretense and metaphor, speaking frankly to a lover (as in "Fragile Tension," "Jezebel" and album-opener "In Chains," the spiritual successor to DM's early-