The concept for Letting You Down Again: Lo-Fi vs. Depeche Mode is one of two things: a demonstration of lo-fi loyalty or a declaration of how some people want Depeche Mode dead - a statement darker than perhaps any of Depeche Mode’s songs themselves. The compilation of Depeche Mode covers done by lo-fi bands obviously isn’t a tribute album, per se. Only a few bands on the compilation even claim to like Depeche Mode. (A number of the bands give a short anecdote about Depeche Mode following their covers, either celebrating them or denouncing them.) CD-R label Asaurus records calls this collection “a fight to the death,” even going as far as including a headstone with “Depeche Mode” emblazoned on it. Of course, the date of death is this compilation’s release date.

In a word, creepy.

Despite the bleakness, quite of few of these covers are quite good. Curtains Afire slows down “Just Can’t Get Enough” and turns it into a quiet lament. While The Mathlete’s version of “Never Let Me Down Again” is pretty faithful, Bad Knees wrote a new melody for “Get the Balance Right.” The artist claims that he’d never heard the song before he attempted it, but he liked the lyrics so much that he wrote his own melody around it. The result is absolutely stunning, and it sounds like a lost Moon and Antarctica-era Modest Mouse song, swallowed in slide guitar, out-of-tune piano and Isaac Brock’s signature complicated vocal rhythms. Manipulator Alligator’s version of “Blasphemous Rumors” is so quiet and haunting that it better not be the last thing you listen to before you go to sleep. Holly and the Dead Saints’s “Master and Servant” is so sultry, so slinky, that, well, it begs for the actions the song celebrates (And that’s kind of the point, isn’t it?) And for the lo-fi cuteness factor, The French Toasts play “People Are People” on a kiddie xylophone and a ribbed Fanta bottle.

Most of the other versions are exactly what you’d expect: an acoustic guitar picked quietly while a thin voice wavers. Those are quite nice, but other versions aren’t quite so great and quite frankly verge on irritating. A Cardigan and a Frown attempt “Just Can’t Get Enough,” but it sounds like they started playing as if they knew the song, but then realized that they don’t know anything other than the chorus. They start falling out of rhythm, and then decide to just start shouting the chorus as loud and as shrill as they can. You’d think that would be charming, but doesn’t come off terribly well. Patrick Elkins’s electronics on “Boys Say Go” are so shrill that I couldn’t get through the song. Then again, the annoying factor could be just playing into the concept. Touche.

Letting You Down Again is the second in Asaurus’s vs. series, the first being The Hiss That We Have Missed: Lo-Fi vs. Smashing Pumpkins. I love the idea, and I adore this compilation. I keep trying to guess whom the next compilation will focus on. The Smiths? Pixies? R.E.M? Maybe Colin Clary can attack “Everybody Hurts”?

Grumpy Bear - World Full of Nothing.mp3

Buy Letting You Down Again from Asaurus Records.