New Order

It's strange to look at the stack of albums that

New Order made during the 1980s, because there's almost nothing to link 1981's Movement with 1989's Technique, beyond the band name.

New Order's membership remained constant during '80s, with the three surviving

members of Joy Division joined by Gillian Gilbert, who was added to flesh out

New Order's burgeoning love of synthesizers. But a fantastic series of new

reissues, each with a disc of bonus material and an essay by Ian Harrison, does

a fine job of making sense of the transition.

Movement, unsurprisingly, sounds like a band still in the

clutches of its old sound: It was the first time Bernard Sumner had sung

(bassist Peter Hook even takes lead on one song), and sonically, the band clung

to Joy Division's darkness. It's a good but uneven set, though the

supplementary material outshines it, particularly the first appearance of "Everything's

Gone Green." 1983 saw the release of the classic Power, Corruption &

Lies,

which Hook refers to in these new notes as "the first New Order record." It was

the sound of a band coming out of the shadows, retaining some of the pop

elements of older days, but also embracing happiness and a whole new world of

sequencers—all aided by copious acid consumption. The electronics of the

age were pretty primitive, but that was a huge part of Power's charm—it blips

and bloops with real humanity. The accompanying single "Blue Monday" (a massive

success that New Order actually left off the album) was the pinnacle of the

style, with droll vocals set to an almost human-free track. It's their most

famous track, but certainly not their best, especially seated next to songs

like "Age Of Consent."

Low-Life, from 1985, completely locked the disco

influences into sync with New Order's pop leanings: It launched the band (with

some help from the Pretty In Pink soundtrack) into the American consciousness via "The

Perfect Kiss" and "State Of The Nation," but also found room for the slow-burn

instrumental "Elegia" and the goofy "Face Up." Brotherhood, released the following

year, found New Order's disco and rock sides factioning, with the rock side

clearly winning. It's an unsung great of the catalog that's dwarfed a bit by

its massive single, "Bizarre Love Triangle." The band closed out the decade

with what would be its last truly great album, Technique. This time, the synths

fought back and won, a fact made possible by the burgeoning acid-house scene

and the fact that New Order—in typical fashion—recorded it in the

midst of a four-month vacation in Ibiza. There have been excellent New Order

songs post-'89, but these reissues capture the essential years of an incredible

band that never took itself too seriously.