Despite walloping a ruinous heroin habit that left him clinically dead for a few minutes a decade ago, Dave Gahan's first solo outing, 2003's Paper Monsters, was most notable for its utter lack of self-confidence. You couldn't really blame him for sounding a bit tentative--the lean Depeche Mode frontman had spent the previous 25 years singing other people's songs. On Hourglass, however, Gahan finally comes into his own, taking the grimy synth-rock blueprint of his 50 million album-selling band and customizing it with his own swaggering touch. He proves just as passionate meditating over lovely mood pieces, such as "Miracles," as he does lending his well-worn howl to noir-ish rock anthems like "Kingdom," through it all sounding more alive than he has in years. --Aidin Vaziri