Depeche Mode

THE DARK PROGRESSION DVD by DEPECHE MODE

This new unauthorized documentary focuses on the four albums of the band’s career that saw them conquer the United States, rise up the charts and at their biggest show of the 80’s, play to a sold out crowd of 65,000 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. Depeche Mode went on to become one of the biggest selling bands both on CD and on stage, living through dark times, drug use, soul searching, endless hours on the road and making some quite excellent music. Black Celebration was the beginning of the quartet’s ascension. This was the one where they experimented with samplers and found sounds, spurred on by the Industrial sounds coming out of Germany. People Are People combined Martin Gore’s intelligent lyrics with Dave Gahan’s sensual vocals and metallic percussion to create a distinct sound the likes that most hadn’t heard before. From there the band crafted Music For The Masses with Gore incorporating more guitar-like sounds and the band using the sound of a throbbing Porsche engine as the heartbeat for Stripped. About this time photographer-turned video director Anton Corbjin brought Depeche Mode into kids’ homes with his scenic presentations of the band out in the desert and these promos forced radio to take notice.

With the Masses tour culminating in their 101st and last show of the tour at the Rose Bowl and the D.A. Pennebaker directed documentary 101, Depeche Mode took a few years off before returning with a new producer and new take on their synths and samples style, opening up the mix to let Gahan’s vocals breathe and introducing Gore’s incredibly memorable guitar work as heard on Personal Jesus, Enjoy the Silence and Policy of Truth. With Alan Wilder’s intensive studio work crafting the songs into a pop sheen. The band again took to the road, playing stadiums as they broke the Billboard Top Ten. Another several year break followed with the band working hard to top the successes of Violator, searching for a direction. Digging deep into his soul, Gore wrote some of his best songs with Wilder stripping the demos down to their bare bones, to build Songs of Faith and Devotion from 1993, which included I Feel You, Walking in My Shoes and the biggest departure, the heavy gospel Condemnation.

The Dark Progression features interviews with Gahan, Gore and Wilder plus contemporaries and pioneers in their own right in OMD’s Andy McCluskey, Thomas Dolby and Gary Numan, all three obviously huge fans of DM. Producers, engineers and journalists, including DM biographer Jonathan Miller also give their testimonies and thoughts on the evolution and growth of the band.

Los Angeles-based KROQ has long supported DM and in 1990 17,000 people came to see the band at a Wherehouse Records store in West Hollywood, getting the band on the news. They were a true power now in pop culture. To bring everything kind of full circle almost twenty years from that event, thousands of people came to see Depeche Mode play in the middle of Sunset Blvd. for a free concert this April courtesy of former KROQ personality turned late night host Jimmy Kimmel. Depeche Mode’s new album Sounds of the Universe is proof that the band still has the fire that The Dark Progression documents.  (Review by Bret Miller)