"SWEETEST TEMPTATION:
A TRIBUTE TO DEPECHE MODE"

Artist: Various Artists (2001)
Label: Angelstar
Style: EBM/Synth-pop
Songs: 15
B
 

Reviewed by: Darklight

This Depeche Mode tribute album features:

L’Image “Useless”
Yendri “Behind The Wheel”
Point Of View “Everything Counts”
China-Touch “World In My Eyes”
Thomas Schumacher “Tora! Tora! Tora!”
Obsc(y)re “People Are People”
Mad M “Leave In Silence”
God Module “Little 15”
Silent Promises “Waiting For The Night”
Head-Less “It’s No Good”
Condition One “Insight”
New Concept “Blue Dress”
Page Of Quire “Reason Man”
Flesh Field “Enjoy The Silence”
Floating Point “Home”

This compilation is from Europe and most of the bands featured here are also from Europe. Therefore, there’s definitely an overall European synth-pop sound to this entire album, and that’s a good thing. But also due to this, the songs contained here don’t sound a lot different from the originals. Most of the bands basically deliver remakes. But since the original songs were good to begin with, this isn’t completely a bad thing.

Two of the songs here delivered by God Module and Flesh Field are dark EBM tracks that really add a new twist to the songs. While everything on this compilation is good, these two tracks manage to stand out the most. It would have been nice if more EBM bands were featured here to give a little more contrast to this album. Right now this album basically sticks to clean synth-pop from beginning to end with some tracks coming off too similar to the originals.

The songs are placed in a good order without any mediocre tracks, but as with most compilation albums, some tracks stand out a lot more than others. My favorites are: L’Image “Useless”, China-Touch “World In My Eyes”, Obsc(y)re “People Are People”, God Module “Little 15”, Silent Promises “Waiting For The Night”, Head-Less “It’s No Good”, Page Of Quire “Reason Man” and Flesh Field “Enjoy The Silence”.

The only two tracks I dislike are Thomas Schumacher “Tora! Tora! Tora!” and Mad M “Leave In Silence”. “Tora! Tora! Tora!” is a rather dreary empty track that drags along slowly, while “Leave In Silence” has extremely annoying robotically altered high-pitched vocals. The entire song sounds like it was recorded in the ‘80s with a new wave edge. These two tracks bring down the flow of the CD a bit. They are still decent, and not bad enough to skip past, but the album would have been better overall without them.

The bottom line is that this is a very enjoyable compilation CD for fans of Depeche Mode and synth-pop in general. Electro-industrial/dark EBM fans will especially enjoy the songs by God Module and Flesh Field. Of all of the Depeche Mode tribute albums I’ve heard, this is definitely one of the best.