Songs of Faith and Devotion

The cover of Songs of faith and devotions is the color of Lent boarded by bleeding merlot frame in which the visages of the band in its entire foursome stare unglazed through violet hexagrams, splotches of purple seminally shattered, pensive  Most Depeche mode albums don’t even have pictures of the band inside the lyric notes let alone adorning the cover.  The title SONGS OF FAITH AND DEVOTION looks like it was finger-painted by a four year old.

This is the band I have more or less lived for since last summer whose tape I first bought four years ago with the image of the wilted phoenix that was a flower suspended in deep space on the cover. the tape I bought last summer under the title CATCHING UP WITH which I listened to incessantly, the CD CONSTRUCTION TIME AGAIN being the first CD I eve purchased.

There is a distilled eeriness. After ten  studio album this is  the first release where the band on the cover. I keep getting Dave Gahan and Martin Gore confused.  Martin Gore looks like he uses the same amount of hairspray as I do.

  Dave Gahan;’s hair is long and he looks more like he has just finished reading Faust and is seriously getting ready to tempt a desert -meditating Jesus into sin. Andrew Wilder looks like a nerd trying to fit in via a pair of sunglasses. Martin Gore retains a look of austereness welded in the angular features of his jawline. Unbeknownst to any of the band members at the time this is the last album that Fletch will be a part of. 

Tim asks me what I have in my hand. I tell him it’s my favorite band.

“I didn’t even know they had a new album coming out. All year I’ve been listening to Depeche mode and the Cure and dreaming about England and here they release a new album days before I am scheduled to depart.

Tim Shrugs. I was going to buy either Black celebration or Music for the Masses but this takes precedence.

Tim has already made it a note that the band looks Satanic.

“The cover alone looks like a Ouija board.”

Tim always wears purple. I refrain from saying anything.

“I can’t wait to listen to it. This band is one of my best friends.”