Niki N. Phaser

Depeche Mode are greeting the holiday season with two new singles released as a Double A side. The two songs in question are Hole to Feed and Fragile Tension, lifted from their spring-born album, Sounds of the Universe. The single will be released on December 7th and the full tracklisting includes an impressive batch of remixes, not just of the two songs, but also of previous single, Peace, and of other tracks from the new album (Come Home and Perfect).

There is also a video to help promote, but only Hole to Feed, unfortunately. In more than one way, Fragile Tension would have deserved the extra attention. On the other hand, the strange video for the aforementioned song doesn’t really do it justice,  Eric Wareheim’s vision, while bound to spark some reaction, being a bit too… 90′s in its attention craving direction. The band members are not in the video, but we all got used to that by now.

This is the second single in the history of Depeche Mode to be written by singer Dave Gahan and collaborators, Christian Eigner and Andrew Phillpott and one of the three songs authored by the trio to feature on Sounds of the Universe. Depeche Mode are currently continuing their seemingly ill-fated  Tour of the Universe, marked by a number of cancellations caused by Gahan’s health problems: doctor’s orders for vocal rest, a leg injury and gastroenteritis in the tour’s debut days. It seems that despite his… devotion, the universe is not on his side…

UPDATE: Depeche Mode have indeed released a video for the other single involved, Fragile Tension, on November 20.

HOLE TO FEED video                     FRAGILE TENSION video