From the very first dark pulsing beats of Depeche Mode’s latest album, “Delta Machine,” lead singer David Gahan is a demon who wants to possess you. “Welcome to my world,” he sings, his voice smooth and sinister, enticing and sultry with a hint of menacing madman. “Step right through the door,” he beckons. “Leave your tranquilizers at home. You don’t need them anymore.” What follows is an hour-long journey through the seedy underbelly of the postmodern world immersed in sex, rejection, sin and redemption.

In the opening track, you sense a grandness about “Delta Machine” that has been lacking on their last few albums. Whereas synth revival bands like Muse achieve this to good effect, Depeche Mode is the veritable master at sweeping tracks that are simultaneously understated and minimalistic, yet lush and grand. It is a rare combination that shows why Depeche Mode is the standard to which all bands in the genre are compared.

While its latest effort, the band’s thirteenth studio album, does not contain enough hooks or pop sensibility to be played on mainstream radio, chief songwriter and guitarist Martin Gore has clearly stepped things up a notch since 2009’s “Sounds of the Universe.” You get the sense that “Delta Machine” is not merely a collection of songs, but that the album is a cohesive unit intended to be heard in one sitting from beginning to end. 

Balancing Gore’s gothic blues with Andy Fletcher’s industrial beats, “Delta Machine” proves that while the band is not necessarily pushing the boundaries, its sound can still expand and grow. The result is a sound that’s mature but not old, deliberate but not calculated, dark but not depressing.

Despite the evolution, there are nods to Depeche Mode’s past catalogue. “Welcome to My World” has the same opening track effect as “World in My Eyes” did for “Violator,” and the riff in the second track, “Angel,” is distinctly reminiscent to “I Feel You” from the 1993 album “Songs of Faith and Devotion.” That’s not to say they’re rehashing old material, but “Delta Machine,” for its all bluesy angst, still feels familiar. 

There is an exciting edge to this album, a sleazy, carnal undercurrent led by Gahan as the devilish, seductive lounge singer drawing the listener in —- the musical equivalent of a smooth-talking drug pusher enticing a wary but curious child. This is most evident on “Slow” a grinding, slow-burning, strip tease of a blues song which seems to be the heart of the album, not only due to its placement at the half-way point, but because “Delta Machine” is an obvious homage to the delta blues sensibility that “Slow” epitomizes. 

Delta Machine is a dark, cathartic journey, and upon reaching the album closer, the snaky, blues-drenched “Goodbye,” you get the sense when you hear Gahan sing, “Now I’m pure, now I’m clean,” that the demons have been exorcised. But one wonders, for a band that captures torment so well, why they would want to?