WORTH A LOOK?: ****

We’ve only ever seen Depeche Mode gig at Wembley Arena and we were at the very same venue on the night news broke of the death of the band’s keyboardist Andy Fletcher last year.

• Read on for reasons including everything we know about new album Memento Mori, or ‘Remember you must die’ in English

Pictured above are the band’s surviving members Martin Gore and Dave Gahan (left to right) and doubtless this news and this song’s otherworldy title make us think this is the band’s best single since the frankly astonishing Enjoy The Silence in 1990.

We saw them at the old Wembley Arena touring albums Black Celebration (1986) and Music For The Masses (1987) before they really struck it big in the US and Ghosts Again combines a simple, almost haunting nursery rhyme-like lyric with a commercial piece of dark electronica that at once seems very them yet also the best thing they’ve done in decades.

Fletch doesn’t appear on new album Memento Mori, released 24 March 2023, and all 12 songs there are written by Gore.

There’s even a touch of Soft Cell about the catchy bridge coupled with the lyrics: ‘Hellos, goodbyes, a thousand midnights, lost in sleeping lullabies.’

Although not a direct comment on Fletch’s death the chorus (‘Faith is sleeping, lovers in the end, Whisper we’ll be Ghosts Again.’) just feels like a beautiful acknowledgement that the band’s line-up has changed. Gahan is also in fine singing voice.

The band begin touring soon and there’s 1 UK date at London’s Twickenham Stadium on 17 June 2023 as well as a Barcelona Primavera Sound appearance.

• Main picture via Facebook courtesy Depeche Mode Tickets
• Have you seen a Depeche Mode show before and what did you think of this song? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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