Construction Time Again is the third studio album by English electronic music band Depeche Mode. It was released on 22 August 1983 by Mute Records. It was the band's first album to feature Alan Wilder as a member, who wrote the songs "Two Minute Warning" and "The Landscape Is Changing". The album's title comes from the second line of the first verse of the track "Pipeline". It was recorded at John Foxx's Garden Studios in London, and was supported by the Construction Time Again Tour.
The full addition of Alan Wilder to Depeche Mode's lineup created a perfect troika that would last another 11 years, as the combination of Martin Gore's songwriting, Wilder's arranging, and David Gahan's singing and live star power resulted in an ever more compelling series of albums and singles. Construction Time Again, the new lineup's first full effort, is a bit hit and miss nonetheless, but when it does hit, it does so perfectly. Right from the album's first song, "Love, In Itself," something is clearly up; Depeche never sounded quite so thick with its sound before, with synths arranged into a mini-orchestra/horn section and real piano and acoustic guitar spliced in at strategic points.
Two tracks later, "Pipeline" offers the first clear hint of an increasing industrial influence (the bandmembers were early fans of Einstürzende Neubauten), with clattering metal samples and oddly chain gang-like lyrics and vocals. The album's clear highlight has to be "Everything Counts," a live staple for years, combining a deceptively simple, ironic lyric about the music business with a perfectly catchy but unusually arranged blending of more metallic scraping samples and melodica amid even more forceful funk/hip-hop beats.
Elsewhere, on "Shame" and "Told You So," Gore's lyrics start taking on more of the obsessive personal relationship studies that would soon dominate his writing. Wilder's own songwriting contributions are fine musically, but lyrically, "preachy" puts it mildly, especially the environment-friendly "The Landscape Is Changing."
Side A
A1. Love, In Itself - 4:29
A2. More Than A Party - 4:45
A3. Pipeline - 5:54
A4. Everything Counts - 4:20
Side B
B1. Two Minute Warning - 4:13
B2. Shame - 3:51
B3. The Landscape Is Changing - 4:49
B4. Told You So - 4:26
B5. And Then… - 4:35
B6. Everything Counts - 0:59
Notes
Release: 1983
Format: LP
Genre: Synth-pop, Industrial
Label: Mute Records
Catalog# 540053
Vinyl: VG+
Hoes: VG+
Prijs: €10,00
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