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Rock Review | Depeche Mode Intimations of Betrayals Big and Small By LAURA SINAGRA Published: December 9, 2005 When the singer David Gahan raised his arms to the sky during "Personal Jesus," Depeche Mode's smash from 1989, it may have looked as if he was positing himself as a savior to his synth-pop flock. Of course, that song is actually a simple lament for the kind of everyday isolation that Depeche Mode has, over its 25-year career, magnified into arena-size catharsis. Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden, the crowd shouted along with its demand for connection, "Reach out and touch faith." Skip to next paragraph Forum: Popular Music While there's certainly a genius to the band's fusion of new wave ache and Euro-disco throb, the key to Depeche Mode's longevity lies in the directness of its sentiments. You could choose to read the dark, vigorously performed hits "Policy of Truth" and "Never Let Me Down Again" as indictments - not just of inconstant love but also of larger, more dire betrayals. Depeche Mode has always appealed to the mainstream by never fully throwing in with quirky new romantics, isolationist goths or insouciant purveyors of industrial dance music. Even when the multi-instrumentalist songwriter Martin Gore wears feathers or chains - at this show, he sported a plumed, centurion-style helmet, leather kilt and black wings - he still seems like a regular guy, as does the teacherly keyboardist Andrew Fletcher. On the retrofuturistic stage set, though, the band looked like regular guys trapped in an Ed Wood movie. Three flying saucerlike keyboard banks emitted light flashes from circular holes as large silver orbs displayed song-appropriate words like "absolution" and "scapegoat." The band was obviously energized by its best new material since the 1990 album "Violator." The new album, "Playing the Angel," fueled by Mr. Gore's divorce trauma and Mr. Gahan's recent songwriting involvement, recaptures a bygone muscular gloom. Kicking off the show, the new "A Pain That I'm Used To" made a back-to-basics statement, dispelling any fears fans might have had of sonic experimentation along the lines of 2001's "Exciter," Depeche Mode's atmospheric jaunt with the Bjork producer Mark Bell. New songs dominated the concert's first half; the standouts were the INXS-like dance-rocker "John the Revelator" and the breakup ode "Precious." Early in the set, the strutting and twirling Mr. Gahan cast aside his gray blazer to reveal a leather vest, later stripping that off as well. Mr. Gore played forceful guitar, periodically manning his synth spaceship. He also handled vocals on the 1984 Wertherian chestnut "Somebody," and warbled "Home," from 1997's "Ultra." Mr. Gore's ballads, which suggested David Bowie on truth serum, garnered applause from the supportive faithful. Mr. Gahan let the crowd sing most of "Enjoy the Silence," the band's lovely, jittery ode to wordless chemistry. If the band kept the provocative "Blasphemous Rumor," with its speculation on God's sadism, and "Stripped," with its plea, "Let me hear you make decisions/Without your television," safely in the vault, you could still find contemporary critique in "Everything Counts," with its sing-along coda: "Grabbing hands grab what they can/Everything counts in large amounts." So simple, and sadly, in matters of love and war, so timelessly true.

Happy Valentines to all you romantics. Thought some of you might find it interesting that St. Valentine was an enemy of Islam, and Muslims are being advised not to celebrate it.