Memento Mori (stylised on cover as Memento|Mori) is the fifteenth studio album by English electronic music band Depeche Mode, released on 24 March 2023[2] through Columbia.

Gore said the songs were too good to be a side project, and so Depeche Mode put them on the album although Butler was never going to join the band.

Gore said that the loss of their bandmate had brought them closer together, saying, "I think that the one thing that's come out of Andy's dying that's possibly, you know, positive....

She said, "It was written by Dave, and James and I literally locked ourselves in the studio one day and completely remade his demo, and presented it to him.

[16][17] On 4 October 2022, the band held a press conference in Berlin, announcing the album title and the world tour.

On Volt Magazin's website, it was confirmed that "Dave Gahan and Martin Gore said there were five finished tracks that didn't make it onto the long player.

"[20][21] On 24 May 2023, the official music video was released for "Wagging Tongue" directed by the Sacred Egg, with Anton Corbijn acting as the creative director.

[22] On 25 May 2023, during the SmartLess Apple Podcast, Gore stated that an unreleased song from the Memento Mori sessions titled "Life 2.0" will be released later in the year.

[23] On 16 June 2023, the ANNA remix of "My Cosmos Is Mine" was released on streaming platforms as the second single from the album.

[24] On 7 July 2023, remixes of "Wagging Tongue" were released on streaming platforms, the song featuring as the third single from the album.

[29] On 29 January 2024, an official music video was released for "Before We Drown",[30] in which Corbijn "directs a moody seafront visual for the Memento Mori track".

[35] On 23 March 2023, the eve of the album's release, "My Cosmos Is Mine", "Speak to Me" and "Soul with Me" were performed live for the first time at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, California.

[36] On 27 January 2024, two days before its official video's release, "Before We Drown" made its live debut at the O2 Arena in London.

14, selling 32,000 equivalent album units in its opening week, marking the first time since 1987's Music for the Masses that the band failed to break into the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 chart.

[42] The Guardian gave it four out of five stars, writing "Gore's say-what-you-see lyrics are always best on the essentials of life—sex and death—and 'Ghosts Again' is the pair's best single in aeons, a singalong meditation on mortality that's concise and powerful.

Gore's choirboy trills have never been richer than on 'Soul with Me', while Gahan ranges ever-restlessly from operatic to reptilian, the electro-pop Freddie Mercury.

There's warmth in the album's fusion of industrial grind with delicate melody, and producer James Ford sparks a revivifying weirdness in songs such as 'My Cosmos Is Mine'.

"[53] Kory Grow of Rolling Stone praised the message of the album, stating "Acknowledging mortality defines much of Memento Mori, but it never feels heavy handed or even all that sullen.

He concluded, "As always with Depeche Mode, everything counts in large amounts, and on Memento Mori, the stakes feel bigger than ever.

For the most part, this is classic band territory—moody goth draped in familiar lyrical subjects, now also informed by a world-stopping pandemic", but was critical on some tracks saying "'Don't Say You Love Me' comes off like the result of a ChatGPT quest to write a Depeche Mode song, and 'Caroline's Monkey' unsuccessfully juggles too many sounds and metaphors during its four-plus minutes.

"[56] Roisin O'Connor of The Independent observed, "They can't unlearn their decades of experience, so instead they adopt a kind of back-to-basics approach.

By avoiding clutter, both in lyrics and in instrumentation, each song feels like inhaling a gulp of cold, crisp air.

Still, 'Soul with Me' is the only true miss, less mid-album fermata than full-on slog: a slow dance of shuffling drums, tremolo guitars, and elementary end-rhyme.

Its maudlin sense of self-pity runs counter to the unlikely endurance tale that is Memento Mori, an album that almost died with Fletcher in London.