Crash by Mesh

Mesh, like De/Vision that I posted about last time, is a bit of a relic in some ways. They formed in 1991, and just missed synthpop mainstreamism. Their earliest material (which actually wasn't released for some time; it came in out 2001 on Original: 91-93) sounds very much like a product of this time period. Perhaps ironically, it's not overly Depeche Mode like, and in fact when Mesh finally got a release, in 1994, Fragile didn't sound very Depeche Modish at all either. If anything, it sounded like slightly more melodic and British Pretty Hate Machine era Nine Inch Nails. 1996's In This Place Forever was more of the same, although the melodic side was made stronger, and this is where some tentative comparisons to Depeche Mode start making sense.

Mesh did some compilation and live albums over the next few years, and 1999's The Point At Which It Falls Apart and 2002's Who Watches Over Me? are the two that sound the most like Depeche Mode albums to me, out-Depeche Moding Depeche Mode themselves (although the song "People Like Me (With This Gun)" is probably the most Pretty Hate Machine sounding song Mesh ever recorded.) With 2006's We Collide and 2009's A Perfect Solution, Mesh introduced some rock sensibility in the song structure and tone of some of the songs, while still remaining darkly synthpop on most of the rest. If anything, those later albums suffer from being over-produced at times; they're too lush and "busy." Some of the earlier, slightly more raw tracks have more punch. Although I will say that "Crash" is one of my favorite songs of all time.

So anyway, that all sounded pretty rambly and probably incoherent, right? Well, check out the song then, and don't worry about it. If you like it, I certainly recommend that you check out more Mesh. They're relatively easy to find nowadays, and you can get quite a few of their works as mp3 downloads from Amazon, or as cheap CDs on the used market.

EDIT: Curses! The user who posted the video I had closed his account! Anyway, here's a live version of the song. It lacks some of the fragility live, but hopefully you can still get the idea.

EDIT EDIT: Replaced the live version of "Confined" with the music video of "Crash." Maybe I'll upload "Confined" myself one of these days, since it's gone now.