Martin L Gore - 'Counterfeit 2' (Mute)
2/5
By: Matt Tomiak
Regardless of the quality of the music it contains, it's hard not to remain just the tiniest bit sceptical about an entire album devoted solely to cover-versions. For this is what Martin L. Gore - he of doomy 80s goth-pop-love-gods Depeche Mode - has chosen to do for the second time.
Justifiably enough, it's difficult to find fault with the overall standard of the songwriters whose tunes are re-worked here... Such icons as Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Nick Cave, David Bowie and even Kurt Weill are all represented on 'Counterfeit.'
Conveniently, most of the eleven tracks fall into the atmospheric, eerie synth-pop bracket that Gore's band originally branded their name with, save for a startling, swooning version of Weill's luscious 'Lost in the Stars.' And that's just the main reservation - the fact that such a material convergence and crossover occasionally seems a little too straight-forward from original format to the trademarked sound Gore will always be associated with... A daring surprise here and there would have sufficed dramatically.
So, granted, there's hardly anything wrong with these songs, and fans of the 'Mode will find plenty of interest. But in a world where lovers of original music are consistently infuriated by the faceless karaoke singing-clones churned out by the TV pop-show machine with almost terrifying efficiency, is a full LP's worth of other people's songs really that much more worthy?
Artists in this article: Martin L Gore
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