Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	70/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
The A.V. Club	A−
Entertainment Weekly	B+
Los Angeles Times
NME	7/10
Pitchfork	6.3/10
PopMatters
Rolling Stone
Spin
The Times

Sounds of the Universe is the twelfth studio album by English electronic music band Depeche Mode, released on 17 April 2009 by Mute Records. It was supported by the 2009–10 concert tour Tour of the Universe. Three singles were released from the album; "Wrong", "Peace", and a double A-side of "Fragile Tension" and "Hole to Feed". "Perfect" was also released in the US as a promotional single.

As with the previous album, Playing the Angel, Dave Gahan has once again written three songs with Christian Eigner and Andrew Phillpott: "Hole to Feed", "Come Back" and "Miles Away/The Truth Is". "Spacewalker" and the bonus track "Esque" are instrumentals. Martin Gore shares lead singing duties with Gahan on "In Chains", "Peace" and "Little Soul", he sings the lead of "Jezebel" and the B-side "The Sun and the Moon and the Stars" on the second disc of the deluxe box set. The B-side "Oh Well" is the first track ever to be co-written by Gore and Gahan. The final track "Corrupt" is followed by a short hidden instrumental version of the song "Wrong".

The album was released by Capitol Records in the United States and by EMI in Canada, marking the first time in the band's catalog that saw distribution from EMI within North America, where previous albums were released by Sire Records and Reprise Records, a division of Warner Music Group.

While Dave Gahan was still busy with his solo album Hourglass (2007), Martin Gore was in his home studio in Santa Barbara, California, working on new songs. In May 2008 the band hit the studio to record their twelfth studio album.Ben Hillier took the production reins again, because the band were so satisfied with their previous collaboration on Playing the Angel (2005).

...
Wikipedia