Construction Time Again
| Construction Time Again | ||||
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| Studio album by Depeche Mode | ||||
| Released | 22 August 1983 | |||
| Length | 42:26 | |||
| Label | Mute/Sire | |||
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| Depeche Mode chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Construction Time Again | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| The Austin Chronicle | |
| PopMatters | 5/10 |
| Q | |
| Record Mirror | |
| Rolling Stone | |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | |
Construction Time Again is the third studio album by the English electronic band Depeche Mode, released on 22 August 1983 by Mute Records. This was the first Depeche Mode album with Alan Wilder as a full band member, who wrote the songs "Two Minute Warning" and "The Landscape Is Changing", as well as the B-side "Fools". The title comes from the second line of the first verse of the track "Pipeline". It was supported by the Construction Time Again Tour.
The album was recorded at John Foxx's Garden Studios in London, engineered by Gareth Jones (who had also engineered Foxx's 1980 album Metamatic) and mixed at the Hansa Tonstudio in Berlin.
In January 1983, shortly before the release of the "Get the Balance Right!" single, songwriter Martin Gore attended an Einstürzende Neubauten concert, giving him the idea to experiment with the sounds of industrial music in the context of pop.
This album introduced a transition in lyrical content for the group. Construction Time Again would include a bevy of political themes, sparked by the poverty Gore had seen on a then-recent trip he had taken to Thailand.
NME hailed the album, saying that "Everything Counts" "is Mode's best ever single, and undeniably one of their biggest hits. [...] It sold because it combines edgy and poignant melodies held in thrilling tension; a tough, urgent dancebeat; and a gleamingly modern sound with an element of quirkiness to mark it out in the crowd. And the same goes for every other track on the album." Reviewer Mat Snow qualified Alan Wilder's composition "Two Minute Warning" as "a haunting melody whose transition from verse to chorus explodes in one of those breathtakingly uplifting moments" and concluded that Depeche Mode "have made a bold and lovely pop record. Simple as that."
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