Released on 22 August, 1983, Depeche Mode's third studio album
Construction Time Again remains, for me, at least, one of the benchmarks for 80s synth-pop perfection in both sound and mood. This album also marks Alan Wilder's debut in the band and, listening to the aural soundscape on parade here, it's easy to tell what magic it was that he brought to their style. Let's give it a listen then, and I'll try and tell you exactly why it is that you should (if you don't have everything Depeche Mode has done already) add this to your collection of electronic
oeuvres.
Savaged by critics upon its release (The British press was never terribly fond of Depeche Mode's output, and would usually use their column inches to heap ridicule on the band), Construction Time Again is an important piece of work, not only for bringing Alan Wilder (who replaced Vince Clarke, one of the founding members, who'd left Depeche Mode after they'd recorded their first album Speak & Spell) into the fold, but also for the fact that on this album they'd finally found the sound they were looking for. Whereas their second album A Broken Frame was Martin Gore's first chance to compose full-time, it still felt fragmented and unfulfilled, a mere ghost of what they were capable of. To this day, A Broken Frame still feels just ... underwhelming. Sorry, Depeche, but that's the way I feel. So let us take a look at the sound borne from the machinations of the newly-minted foursome.
Listening to the album in its entirety, one of the first aspects of Construction Time Again's framework one would probably notice would be the heavy usage of samples, and how industrial it all sounds. Alongside their longtime producer Daniel Miller (of Mute Records fame, and also sole member of The Normal, known for "Warm Leatherette") and engineer Gareth Jones, they would visit junkyards, construction sites, iron bridges, and factories armed with a reel-to-reel tape recorder, hammers, and drumsticks. To this day it makes me smile to imagine them wandering around and beating metal and concrete with hammers, capturing the sound in a microphone, and using those sounds to compose a large proportion of an album. In fact, track number three, the nearly six-minute "Pipeline," is made up entirely of these captured sounds!
Something else that strikes me about this record would have to be the inclusion of two Alan Wilder-penned tracks, "The Landscape Is Changing" and "Two Minute Warning." The latter, a chilling parable about a nuclear holocaust, and the former, a treatise on the destruction of the environment, give Construction Time Again a rather timeless feel. In fact (and I hate to use this phrase, but it'll have to do), the record comes across as a concept album. "Shame" touches on the guilt of Western Civilization as it wrings its hands at the utter poverty of Third World nations.
"Do you ever get that feeling
When the guilt begins to hurt?
Seeing all the children,
Wallowing in dirt,"
Dave Gahan sings in his deep, pained voice over minimalist drumbeats and a desolate, throbbing bass line. Then there's the timeless classic "Everything Counts," a meditation on corporate greed; "Told You So," a rollicking and seethingly angry track that confronts religious radicalism; and "And Then ... ," about picking up the pieces of a fragmented world and how "to put it all down and start again, from the top to the bottom, and then ..." Hell, did I say Construction Time Again is a timely record? Nearly thirty years after its release, we as a society are still going through a lot of this shit!
Dave Gahan, Martin Gore, Andy Fletcher, and Alan Wilder really touched on a nerve in the universe of electronic music with this metallic masterpiece, and I heartily implore you to (if you haven't already) add this gem to your collection. You'll thank me later!
Here, for your viewing pleasure, is Depeche Mode performing "Told You So" live on The Tube in 1984. Enjoy!
