Depeche Mode - Songs Of Faith And Devotion

Songs of Faith and Devotion, an explosive Billboard No. 1 album when it was released in 1993, continued the band's winning streak and introduced the Top 40 smash "I Feel You." The album also features the classic tracks "Condemnation," "Walking in My Shoes," and "In Your Room."

MUZE Notes: Songs of Faith and Devotion finds the band reinventing itself somewhat. Not that it'd been exactly treading water, but its last several albums had explored and refined a particular aesthetic of dark lyrical themes and minor-key synthesizer atmospherics. However, in 1993's grunge era, lyrical mopeyness was endemic and keyboards were rapidly becoming out-of-date. Wisely, Depeche Mode sought to change both elements of its music, not just one. Incorporating guitars — most notably on the oddly blues-derived "I Feel You" — and other instruments into its songs was a canny move, but the stroke of genius is in Martin Gore's lyrics, which largely abandon the bleakness of the band's more recent work in favor of cautious optimism and spiritual questions. In an age of irony, the real surprise was that this album's title was not particularly ironic.