Entitled "Memento Mori", this 15th studio album should be released next March, the group's singer, Dave Gahan, announced on Tuesday in Berlin.
"We have the opportunity to make music and play it for you, hoping to bring you a sense of joy and solidarity, on our small scale, in a world that seems to be constantly in the throes of some form of turmoil. ", said Gahan during a press conference.
Inspired by both the pandemic and the loss of Fletcher, who died last May at age 60, the album will precede a tour, the band's 19th, which will begin in March in California, Sacramento.
Concerts are notably planned in London, Berlin and Paris.
“When we were in the studio, we often joked and talked about certain things, and of course we missed +Fletch +,” Gahan shared.
Fletcher will thus participate in the tour "in spirit, to judge us".
"Memento mori", or "Remember that you have to die", "it looks very morbid but we can also see it in a very positive way, in the sense + live every day to the fullest +", has on his side commented Martin Gore, main songwriter of the group.
Depeche Mode has sold over one hundred million records worldwide.
Among his greatest hits, "Just can't get enough", "Everything Counts", "Never Let Me Down Again", or "Walking in my Shoes".
Pioneers of synthetic pop in the early 1980s, they developed this genre to free themselves from it by opening up to guitars in the early 1990s.
The group, admitted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020, had immense success with the album "Violator" (1990), which notably includes the hits "Personal Jesus" and "Enjoy the Silence".
Originally, the band included keyboardist and songwriter Vince Clarke, keyboardist, vocalist and songwriter Martin Gore, keyboardist Andy Fletcher and vocalist and songwriter Dave Gahan.
Vince Clarke left the band at the end of 1981 and was replaced two years later by Alan Wilder.
Depeche mode's last studio album, "Spirit", was released in 2017, and was also followed by a tour of Europe and the Americas.
© 2022 AFP