Dave Gahan: Hourglass : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

After a dull disc of roots stuff, the Depeche man goes electro again letting Dave Gahan write his own songs sounds kind of like letting Rose McGowan do her own plastic surgery. But the Depeche Mode crooner has learned a trick or two after a couple of decades selling Martin Gore songs. Even his fans didn't have big expectations for his 2003 solo debut, Paper Monsters, yet it turned out to be a bit of all right, and he wrote a few nice ones for the Mode's sterling Playing the Angel. On Hourglass, he makes a very Depeche-sounding album indeed. Where Paper Monsters attempted too many rootsy guitar moves, Hourglass goes all the way electro, filling the mix with bloopy-bleepy synth blips. Like Gore, Gahan broods over God and humanity and the bleakness of existence in ballads like "Kingdom" and "Saw Something." But he gets off a fantastic sex-hound growl in "Use You," with a gospel vibe recalling Songs of Faith and Devotion, slavering over a Bowie beat nicked from Iggy Pop's "Nightclubbing." It's the nastiest and best thing here for sure.