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  5. It’s ok, but hard to get excited about when it feels like they’ve been re-recording slightly different versions of the same tune for at least the last twenty years.

  7. Reminds me of The Other Two – bit too smooth and tasteful. Needs some vinegar to contrast with the sweet bleeps.
    And, as bad as the lyrics always were, he used to deliver them with something that sounded like enthusiasm..

  8. I can count the number of decent tunes they’ve done since 1993 – in 27 years! – on the fingers of one hand. This one wouldn’t have made the third Electronic or Bad Lieutenant albums…

    Time to give up, I feel.

  10. fentonsteve/Hooky, with whom I agree (silently) on these pages frequently, is slightly harsh above. Those 27 years have only produced 3 albums (and an outtakes collection) and the last one was pretty good.

    As for this one: I like it but hard to disagree with Freddy above.

  11. I think they should knock it on the head. Not New Order without Hooky. But even the last 2 albums with Hooky were tedious too.

    I know they’ve been going yonks but compare to a contemporary say the PSB who still churn out decent work

  13. Probably worth noting this is a leftover track from Music Complete that Bernard has spruced up during lockdown rather than the first track off a new album. On those terms I think it’s great. Stephen Morris version to follow on the 12”.

  14. In the 80s a new New Order single was a huge deal, it might get a play on Peel or Janice Long and then you’d wait for it to turn up in a record shop with whatever imagery Peter Saville had chosen and no information on the sleeve. This one I found myself playing on YouTube, skipped past the rinky-dink sub Pet Shop Boys intro to see whether it had a chorus.

    It’s fine. Dated, pleasant sounding euro pop and sounds like the kind of record heritage act with a magnificent body of work behind them makes 40 years in to their career – and I guess you might want to compare this to work that the Rolling Stones, Macca etc were doing in the early 00s.

    NO have chosen to slip into heritage mode. There are bands from their era who are still doing interesting stuff that isn’t particularly commercial sounding but is still exciting and interesting – Wire, Cabaret Voltaire & former Cabs singer Stephen Mallinder, John Foxx, ACR, Section 25 etc to name a few.

  15. I have said it before, but Crystal (track 1 Get Ready) was the precise point at which they stopped producing great music.

    Other points: counter to received wisdom Waiting for the Sirens call is a stronger album than Get Ready, but Crystal is the last great New Order track. Nothing however on both Sirens albums or Music Complete is in any way surprising or great. Good, consistent yes.

    Interesting bearing in mind comments above to think about the last unqualified great PSBs track.

      • This +
        Inside a dream
        Hoping for a miracle

        I’m of course biased but even I think there’s still mostly average filler on a new PSB release these days, but there’s always 1 or 2 nuggets

        Last 2 NO albums I thought were OK in a similar fashion but just lacking a killer track

  16. I was, and still am, a huge Joy Division fan.

    After Ian Curtis’s death, I naturally followed New Order as well.
    I didn’t rate ‘Movement’, but bought and enjoyed the early singles, as well as “Power Corruption and Lies” and “Low Life”. I also saw them live at the Hacienda in Manchester.

    And then, in about 1985, New Order and I parted company. I don’t know why.
    Maybe they changed, or maybe I changed. But I just found that … the music wasn’t for me any more.
    And so it has remained ever since.

    • Me too, really. I stopped buying the singles religiously when Blue Monday 88 was released. I bought Technique but hated World In Motion. I did buy Regret but was disappointed by Republic. That was 1993.

      As moseleymoles says, Crystal (and I’d add Krafty) were the last twitches of a dying corpse.

      Two or three half-decent songs in 27 years just isn’t worth the bother.

    • Yes, I think I agree too. The 1981-82 EP and Power, Corruption and Lies are the ones I always go back to. Low-Life had great songs and studio gloss. Brotherhood had the same gloss but quailty control issues, and after that, the urgency and ideas seemed to drop. Technique took way too long to surface, but caught the dance wave, and I have some affection for it. It provided comfort on long, lonely field trips to north Wales. I bought Republic, but only played Regret. Not bought anything by them since.

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