Given the cold shoulder Madonna's 2003 album American Life received by critics and audiences alike – it may have gone platinum, but apart from the Bond theme “Die Another Day,” released in advance of the album, it generated no new Top Ten singles (in fact, its title track barely cracked the Top 40) – it's hard not to read its 2005 follow-up, Confessions on a Dance Floor, as a back-to-basics move of sorts: after a stumble, she's returning to her roots, namely the discos and clubs where she launched her career in the early '80s. It's not just that she's returning to dance music – in a way, she's been making hardcore dance albums ever since 1998's Ray of Light, her first full-on flirtation with electronica – but that she's revamping and updating disco on Confessions instead of pursuing a bolder direction.

In a time of sociopolitical upheaval, Depeche Mode emerged with Spirit. Dark, brooding, and painfully relevant upon its release, the collection is one of their most intense and aggressive statements, isolating the frustration, anger, tension, and dread coursing across the globe in the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential election and Brexit. With little subtlety, Depeche Mode take aim and leave few survivors. Producer James Ford (Simian Mobile Disco, Arctic Monkeys, Florence + the Machine) revives the trio after their two prior lackluster efforts and turns Spirit into a highlight of their late era, the strongest effort since 2005's Playing the Angel. From a fiery pulpit, Dave Gahan hurls line after line chastising the masses, wondering how the world got into such a bind.