Album Review: New Order - Education Entertainment Recreation (Live 2018, 2021)

I’m probably going to come across like a grumpy old malcontent here. Par for the course, perhaps.

First things first – I love New Order. I’ve got almost everything they’ve ever released in one format or another, I’ve seen them perform live, at their peak, and on any purely non-scientific gut-feel basis, they’re probably the band I’ve listened to more than any other across the past 35 years. Hell, I even named my blog after one of their early minor “hits”, albeit an early minor hit that might just about be the greatest single track ever committed to vinyl. And the band’s debut album, Movement, is unquestionably my number one album of all-time.

And so, all of that said, when Ian Curtis died, and Joy Division morphed into New Order across the second half of 1980 and into early 1981, I really wish the band had taken some time to find a new vocalist who was a naturally “gifted” singer. I completely understand why that didn’t happen, obviously, and I also understand that the passage of time and an ongoing familiarity means that Bernard Sumner’s vocal is now intrinsically and irreversibly linked with the band’s sound and all of its most memorable landmark tunes. My issue is that he’s just not a particularly good singer. That is all too painfully obvious on the band’s latest live release, Education Entertainment Recreation.

(It’s probably no surprise then, that Movement, the album where Peter Hook takes care of a chunk of the vocal duties, is the one right at the top of my own pile. Despite Hooky having vocal limitations of his own, his voice gels masterfully with Movement’s more downbeat feels.)

Try as I might, as much as I don’t want it to be the case, Sumner’s vocal frailty is the biggest takeaway I have after listening to Education Entertainment Recreation. A frailty which is far less obvious - although still evident - on much of New Order’s studio-produced output.

Right. Now for the positives, because wherever you find New Order, you’ll always find a positive: Education Entertainment Recreation was recorded at London’s Alexandra Palace (the “Ally Pally”) back in November 2018 and it contains one of the most comprehensive career-spanning setlists found on any of the band’s live releases. And the music itself - beyond those vocal shortcomings - is absolutely stunning in every respect.

All of the big guns are fired – ‘Regret’, ‘Crystal’, ‘Sub-Culture’, ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’, ‘Plastic’, ‘The Perfect Kiss’, ‘True Faith’, ‘Blue Monday’, ‘Temptation’, et al. Amongst many others – there’s 21 tracks in total, a double album (2x CD/3x vinyl), including a few gems from the Joy Division cannon, notably ‘Disorder’, and the three closing tracks ‘Atmosphere’, ‘Decades’, and ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. Sadly, nothing whatsoever from Movement.

There’s a bit of Sumner stage banter as he interacts with what sounds like a massive crowd, and there’s the occasional crowd singalong also in evidence at various points. There is a certain rawness to the whole deal, a sense that the band remain a tremendous live proposition, with an off-the-cuff, unscripted spontaneity, even. It is everything a decent live album should be.

Except for that one small but still very important (aforementioned) detail.

Then again, it is perhaps a little churlish to ever expect a perfect live album.

I did warn you.

Album Review: New Order - Music Complete (2015)

The majority of online reviews so far have been positive, but comments on my social media feed over the past fortnight would suggest the early reaction to Music Complete has been rather mixed. I’ve seen it called “a return to form”, and I’ve seen it described as “shit”. As ever with these things, I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

I'm not even sure what we should realistically expect from a New Order album in 2015. I certainly don't think we should be looking for anything too revolutionary or progressive, or anything game-changing. My own starting point for Music Complete was an appreciative "wow, great, more New Order after all this time"... which is not to say I wasn’t really looking forward to it.

Music Complete is the band’s tenth full-length studio album, and the first set of brand new material in ten years. It’s the band’s first album as a five-piece, and the first album without Peter Hook. Not that any of those things stand out as being overly obvious when listening to it, and the album has a comforting “old” New Order vibe all the way through. Which is just how I like it.

If anything, the album feels heavily front-loaded. Virtually all of the real gems arrive within the first 35 minutes – from opener and advance single ‘Restless’, through a half dozen tunes to the Iggy Pop-voiced ‘Stray Dog’, the band doesn’t miss a beat. The Tom Rowlands-produced ‘Singularity’, the bouncy disco of ‘Plastic’, and the unrepentant pop of ‘Tutti Frutti’ (clip below) are all as good as anything the post-Technique New Order has done.

From there, things taper off a little, quickly moving from the sublime to the ordinary, before the truly awful ‘Superheated’ – a regrettable Brandon Flowers collaboration – closes the album on a massively cheesy note. The only real dud here, ‘Superheated’ might better have been called ‘Overcooked’, in deference to the type of music the vocalist’s own band usually coughs up.

The other collaborations work well enough; Iggy’s cameo appearance is an unexpected bonus, Chemical Brother Rowlands offers a deft hand as co-producer on a couple of tracks, while vocals from La Roux, Denise Johnson, and Dawn Zee all add texture on tunes where Barney might otherwise lack the requisite vocal chops.

Old Order, not unlike New Order

Mostly though, this is archetypal New Order, classic guitar lines blended with driving high-bpm electronica/techno. Hook’s absence isn’t obvious, and I no longer buy the idea – as I once did – that if you don’t have Hook, you don’t have New Order. Tom Chapman proves to be a more than adequate replacement here. And naturally the whole thing is stylishly packaged up in a fetching Peter Saville sleeve design.

I’m not sure Music Complete is the ubiquitous “return to form” if form is assessed by 1981-1989 standards, but neither is it “shit”. If pressed to place Music Complete into some sort of historical context, where Power Corruption and Lies or Technique sit at a notional summit, where Movement is the black sheep, and Brotherhood a dark horse, this album is a mid-ranking effort, something akin to a Republic or a Low Life. It’s better than any of the other post millennium releases, but not quite a masterpiece in its own right. Which, when you stop to think about it from a 2015 perspective, is still a rather marvellous thing to be.

A week or so ago The Guardian’s Miranda Sawyer wrote a great interview piece about the band’s return (click here).

 

'Plastic' ... *new* from New Order

It's just over a week now until the scheduled release of Music Complete, the brand new album from New Order. I blogged about the first taster 'Restless' a few months ago, and now the band has released a video for 'Plastic', the second advance sampler for the album. I'm liking what I hear, and it's fair to say I'm really looking forward to the album. Check out the clip below ...

“...gold-plated, weapons-grade Eurodisco anthem” - Uncut Magazine.

Download ‘Plastic’ and ‘Restless’ instantly when you purchase ‘Music Complete’ at iTunes:

http://po.st/NewOrderiTunes