Attention! This review makes use of satirical remarks. This is not a form of bashing.
Art or an acoustic accident?
As a die-hard Depeche Mode fan, I’ve heard a lot of tribute albums over the years – some brilliant, some not so much. But what I discovered by accident on Bandcamp left me speechless: “A Vaporsmear Tribute to Depeche Mode” by Frish Prence/Enoch Speaks We Listen. This is no ordinary tribute album – it’s far outside of what most fans associate with Depeche Mode.
My aversion to experimental music
There are certain types of music that make me wonder if the whole thing isn’t some kind of social experiment: How many people can you get to listen to hours of static, noise, or out-of-tune synthesizers before they give up?
I have to honestly admit: experimental music is just not my thing. Genres like “noise” have never appealed to me – to me it often sounds more like a random product of interference than something that makes musical sense. Maybe it’s because I never understood the appeal behind it. Part of me suspects that this extreme avant-garde aesthetic is reserved for a certain, rather elitist circle. But as I always say: not everyone has to like music. If there are people who like this style and lose themselves in it, then it has its right to exist. Nevertheless, there are sometimes works that are extremely out of line even in this niche – and that seems to be the case with this album.
A tribute album of a special kind
The release describes itself as “The trio return to stretch music very easily with an application and call it art, or progress, or vaporwave, or whatever.”. Admittedly, this sentence made me curious. At first glance, the tracklist contains the usual suspects, the who’s who of typical Depeche Mode cover songs.
Tracklist of “A Vaporsmear Tribute To Depeche Mode”
- Strangelove (3:00)
- Policy Of Truth (3:00)
- In Your Room (2:59)
- Suffer Well (3:00)
- I Feel Loved (3:43)
- Everything Counts (3:14)
- Never Let Me Down Again (3:00)
- Barrel Of A Gun (3:40)
- Personal Jesus (3:00)
- I Feel You (3:05)
- Enjoy The Silence (3:11)
Sounds promising, doesn’t it? But what I heard next made me question everything – my speakers, my ability to recognize music, and maybe even my existence.
Where are the Depeche Mode songs?
From the very first listen, I realized that I didn’t recognize a single one of the songs. That’s rather unusual for a tribute album, isn’t it? I began to wonder if it might be some kind of “witchcraft” trick – like in the 80s, when songs were played backwards to find hidden messages (can the younger generation even relate to this?).
Perhaps (or rather, most likely) I’m just not the target audience for this kind of music. Is this the next stage of AI-generated music? Music for those for whom even the genre “Under 2000 listeners” still sounds too commercial?
I have to admit one thing: I didn’t manage to listen to the songs in full. It was just too exhausting and confusing for me to find a pattern or familiar samples. Phonetic snippets, familiar melodies – no such luck. It almost felt as if the tracks had been corrupted during the upload. Or is it just because my musical understanding is reaching its limits here?
An album for lovers of extremely experimental music
Nevertheless, there are certainly people out there who are looking for exactly that. People who say, “Harmonies are for beginners. I need a challenge!”. For these musical daredevils, “A Vaporsmear Tribute to Depeche Mode” might be just the thing. The cover artwork – possibly AI-generated – is at least visually appealing. For fans of extremely weird, experimental electro, this could possibly be the holy grail among Depeche Mode tributes. Whether you recognize the original songs or not apparently doesn’t matter here. It might even be an advantage not to know anything about the original songs, so you don’t look for an anchor that just isn’t there, like I did.
My conclusion about “A Vaporsmear Tribute To Depeche Mode”
If you are open to really experimental music and maybe even feel a little curious about completely new soundscapes, this album could be something for you. For die-hard Depeche Mode fans hoping for recognition and harmony, however, it’s best to keep your hands – and especially your ears!
