Doublespeak’s ‘Doublespeak’ Is A Covers Album That Forgets To Translate

On paper, Doublespeak is a synthpop historian’s dream. Vince Clarke, the architect of Depeche Mode’s foundational sound and the melodic engine behind Yazoo and Erasure, joins Neil Arthur, the distinctively brooding voice of Blancmange, and Benge, the revered synth collector and producer behind the Wrangler and John Foxx projects. Their debut album, also titled *Doublespeak*, presents a collection of covers drawn from disparate corners of pop and rock. Yet the result is a curiously flat experience, an exercise in analogue fetishism that prioritizes texture over interpretation, leaving these familiar songs strangely inert.

The album’s central tension is its lack of tension. Clarke and Benge construct immaculate, period-accurate soundscapes. The sequencing is crisp, the basslines are weighty, and the synth patches gleam with vintage authenticity. However, this technical proficiency becomes a cage. Their version of The Associates’ “Club Country” retains the original’s rhythmic skeleton but sands off all its decadent, Bowie-esque flamboyance. Where Billy Mackenzie’s vocal was a thrilling, unhinged performance, Arthur’s delivery is controlled and somber, turning a celebration of hedonism into a subdued report.

This pattern repeats. The Human League’s “Being Boiled,” a song whose power derives from its cold, alienated minimalism and Phil Oakey’s deadpan menace, is rendered here with a fuller, more polished arrangement. It sounds expensive and clean, which is precisely what the song never needed. Similarly, a take on Sparks’ “The Number One Song In Heaven” masters the Moroder-esque pulse but completely misses the Mael brothers’ arch, theatrical irony. The track becomes a competent disco instrumental with vocals appended, lacking the original’s knowing wink and cosmic scale.

Neil Arthur’s voice is an acquired taste, a low, weathered baritone that served Blancmange’s melancholic pop perfectly. Here, applied to material so inherently tied to other, more dynamic vocalists, it often feels like a mismatch. His solemn approach drains the energy from Devo’s “Uncontrollable Urge,” reducing its frantic, nervous punk to a mid-tempo plod. The most successful moments come when the source material aligns with Arthur’s inherent gloom, such as on a suitably grim reading of The Normal’s “Warm Leatherette.” Yet even then, it feels more like a competent replica than a compelling reimagination.

*Doublespeak* ultimately functions as a demonstration record for a formidable synth collection, not a cohesive artistic statement from a new group. The album proves these musicians can recreate a sound with museum-grade accuracy, but it rarely answers why they should. In focusing so intently on the *how* of these covers—the specific sequencer, the exact filter sweep—they forget to articulate a *why*. The result is a technically impressive but ultimately bloodless album that speaks in a language of pure craft, leaving emotional resonance lost in translation.