Depeche Mode Return with New Album and Video After Andrew Fletcher's Death

Following the death of keyboardist and producer Andrew Fletcher (Nottingham, 8 July 1961 – 26 May 2022), Depeche Mode's surviving members Dave Gahan and Martin Gore have announced a new album. Titled Memento Mori, their fifteenth studio album is set for release on 24 March 2023 and draws on the experience of loss. The lead single Ghosts Again features softer, unexpectedly joyful sonics with Martin Gore's distinctive guitar, and its lyrics reference Fletcher's passing and the transience of life. The music video, directed by longtime collaborator Anton Corbijn, is inspired by Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal and René Clair's Entr'acte, showing Gahan and Gore playing chess in dark attire amid vanitas iconography. Corbijn has directed many of the band's iconic videos, including Never Let Me Down Again, Enjoy the Silence, and Walking in My Shoes, as well as the 2019 documentary Depeche Mode: Spirits in the Forest. The band performed on 11 February at the Sanremo Music Festival, debuting the single and a cover of Personal Jesus. They will tour Italy in July 2023 with dates at Rome's Stadio Olimpico (12 July), Milan's San Siro (14 July), and Bologna's Stadio Dall'Ara (16 July).