Full disclosure: I’m a Depeche Mode fan. So listening to these allegedly smartened up arrangements bothered me on multiple levels. Depeche Mode is generally a fun listen; they have a good sense of humor about themselves and their music. You can understand their songs in a few different ways, either as serious or silly, depending on your mood.
‘Down to the Bone’ runs into a problem I have with so many other covers of more popular bands: they remove the joy and fun of the original. Perhaps I’d have less of a problem with this if the arrangements were better, or the choice of the instruments showed taste, like Sun Kil Moon’s covers of Modest Mouse. While Sun Kil Moon might have had a similar bleak approach to the music, their attempt had a whole lot less pretention and a bit more liveliness.
What makes this annoying is how similar each arrangement sounds to each other. Even as an electronic band, Depeche Mode has a greater range of sound than these recording would let you believe. “Policy of Truth” literally made me cringe with the choice of vibraphone, which sounds absolutely flat. There’s the vocalist too, who adds more drama then what a casual listener would responsibly expect. Listening to him on “Never Let Me Down Again” sounds like a eulogy for Depeche Mode delivered by someone about to fall asleep.
Some songs are a bit more interesting for the sheer fact they avoid the violin-horn boring combination. “Freelove” takes a more experimental tact, and “Death’s Door” has a sparser sound with guitar. Even these aren’t exceptional, but they do break up the monotony to some degree.
I really wanted to like this a lot more than I did. Maybe in the future I’ll check out Sylvain’s other material, but this kind of shoddy work always puts me off.