No one could argue that Depeche Mode don't have presence. From the opening tone that's built upon until it forms a cacophonous mass of sound, DM make sure you know they are there. Many of their tricks could easily get them lumped in the ambient category - the way they layer sound upon sound to form swells and waves, the way they drive the music forward with repeated notes and loops - but ambient music is so often synonymous with background music, and Sounds of The Universe is anything but.
There's a sense of thunderous invasion in the sheer power behind these songs, and even when they do stop for pause in token "slow song" Jezebel, the ballad style of the vocals is eerily at odds with the sinister click-clocking and minor backing. Though primarily synth driven, punctuating guitar stabs, booming bass, thumping beats and entangled secondary rhythms endow this record with depth and peculiarity. There are the usual strong harmonies, but the reverb soaked vocals can sometimes make Sounds of The Universe feel dated. Whether this is purely because Dave Gahan's voice is so recognisable and so hugely associated with DM's early hits is up for debate.
DM have certainly picked an apt title, having done their best to include as many different sounds and noises as they possibly can, which is strangely both the appeal and part of the problem with Sounds of the Universe. Though the curious and intriguing placement of synthetic percussion and random blares of assorted synth sounds are what makes Sounds of the Universe interesting, it can feel cluttered in places, and after a while seems almost as if they've inserted random sounds into any available gap, purely to distract from the fact that the tunes themselves simply aren't strong enough.
