AMAZON
Paper Monsters marks the solo debut of Dave Gahan, frontman of Depeche Mode and a hedonist of some distinction. It's been a long time coming, so you'd expect the album to be brimming with ideas, messy even, a testament to Gahan's frustration at having to sing Vince Clarke and Martin Gore's songs for all this time while his own were filed away for future use. Yet strangely it's wholly consistent, not the wild work of someone newly liberated, as if Gahan had written it in one go rather than utilising the best of 20 years' worth of unrecorded tunes.

There are basically three types of track here: There's powerful, Depeche-style glam ("Dirty Sticky Floors", "Bottle Living"), quiet urban mood-music ("A Little Piece", "Bitter Apple", "Stay") and rumbling industrial atmospherics, usually rising to an impressive crescendo ("Black and Blue Again", "Hidden Houses", "Goodbye"). Lyrically speaking, it's autobiographical, dealing with Gahan's trouble with relationships and intoxicants and, though it lacks Gore's sense of drama and perversity, it does have a maudlin charm. Occasionally it becomes samey in mood, needing a touch of Gore's pervy spice, but all in all Gahan, along with co-writer and performer Knox Chandler, does a fine and tasteful job. Hopefully Paper Monsters will give him the confidence to really let rip. --Dominic Wills