Columbia Us Vinilo y CD

Review: Depeche Mode's 'Wagging Tongue' was first released in 2023 as the star number from the indelible synthpop band's comeback album and swansong, Memento Mori. Something of downtempo musical elegy, the original track is a crisp exercise in melancholy uplift, colliding the band's usual synthetic arpeggiations with grass-is-greener lyrical themes. Now, however, comes a new ten-track remix bundle, of which select remixes have been chosen for a set of limited releases on wax. Most of the artists enlisted for the job have done a stellar job, amping up the tempo to a neatly electrified 130-ish-bpm, while indulging the zeitgeist's penchant for well-rounded but beefy sonics. On this one, none other than Daniel Avery sticks out with a futureological cosmic electro take, while Hawtin Gaiser opts for knocking big-room techno, and Henning Baer cools things down with a cityscape-soaring 808 remix.

Review: Depeche Mode's new album Memento Mori is a rather bittersweet one for fans - they are of course happy to hear fresh material from their favour electronic doom mongers, but it is also the last time they will hear music from the group featuring corer member Andrew Fletcher, who suddenly passed away at the start of the sessions. Remaining members Dave Gahan and Martin Gore wondered if they would carry on, but carry on they did. And we're glad they did, as this is one of their best albums in years with darkness abounding. Their progression in their latest years have heard them move into darker, peakier, sadder and more industrial themes while drawing on deathly topoi.