Delta Machine | ||||
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Studio album by Depeche Mode | ||||
Released | 22 March 2013 | |||
Recorded | March–October 2012 | |||
Studio |
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Genre | ||||
Length | 57:55 | |||
Label | ||||
Producer | Ben Hillier | |||
Depeche Mode chronology | ||||
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Singles from Delta Machine | ||||
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Professional ratings | |
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Aggregate scores | |
Source | Rating |
Metacritic | 65/100 |
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | |
Clash | 8/10 |
Entertainment Weekly | A− |
The Guardian | |
The Independent | |
NME | 5/10 |
The Observer | |
Pitchfork | 5.0/10 |
Rolling Stone | |
The Times |
Delta Machine is the thirteenth studio album by English electronic music band Depeche Mode, released on 22 March 2013 by Columbia Records and Mute Records. It is the band's first album released under Columbia. Recorded in 2012 in Santa Barbara, California and New York City, the album was produced by Ben Hillier and mixed by Flood. A deluxe edition was also released, containing a bonus disc with four bonus tracks, as well as a 28-page hardcover book including photos by Anton Corbijn.
"Heaven" was released as the album's lead single on 31 January 2013. The second single from the album, "Soothe My Soul", was released on 10 May 2013. followed by "Should Be Higher" on 11 October 2013. Following the album's release, Depeche Mode embarked on the Delta Machine Tour, which kicked off in Nice, France, on 4 May 2013, and wrapped up in Moscow on 7 March 2014.
According to Dave Gahan, Delta Machine marks the end of the trilogy of records that Depeche Mode were recording with producer Ben Hillier.
The album is Martin Gore and Gahan's thematic continuation to a dark, gloomy and bluesy aesthetic that Depeche Mode had started to explore in the late 1980s. The Quietus writer Luke Turner viewed it as the band's "most powerful, gothic, twisted, electronic album since Violator".
Delta Machine received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 65, based on 33 reviews.Entertainment Weekly's Kyle Anderson hailed Delta Machine as "the strongest album the group has put out this century" and praised the work of collaborator Christoffer Berg, stating he "lends a long-lost toughness that runs through much of Delta".The Times critic Will Hodgkinson commented that the album "finds the band striking just the right balance between the chirpy electro-pop of their early days and the harsh industrial dissonance of the later albums". Benjamin Boles of Now proclaimed it as "the best album of [Depeche Mode's] career" and found that the songs "find the band leaping in thrillingly unexpected directions and landing on their feet every time."