Was looking forward to this one. So far, it's not disappointing.

At all.

Ceremony rules

Album Rating: 4.0

Might be New Order's best album quite honestly.

Album Rating: 5.0

Yeah!

Imagine if Ian sang on this

Album Rating: 2.5

Yeah this really is the New Order album for people still hung up on JD, isn't it

Technique & Brotherhood decimate this

Album Rating: 5.0

Brotherhood my least played NO, actually. This one should get more love: all this dark moody experimentation, with this seething energy underneath. Amazing record. Sounds NOTHING like JD.

Album Rating: 4.0

Yeah this really is the New Order album for people still hung up on JD, isn't it

You say that like it's a bad thing

Album Rating: 5.0

Good insight, tectac, and right on, but the really crucial thing is this doesn't sound like JD.

Schmoovement

Album Rating: 2.5

"Good insight, tectac, and right on, but the really crucial thing is this doesn't sound like JD."



it's literally the same band with one new member trying to figure out what the fuck they're doing after losing Ian, of course it sounds like JD lol. they hadn't even agreed on who was going to be the main singer yet

my main issue with this record isn't that it's bad, it's that I'm never in the mood for it - I can agree I've probably been unfair to it on those grounds but if I'm thinking about New Order it's more often than not gonna be PCL, Technique, Brotherhood, Substance etc

but I don't feel like it's any less fair than the people who actually do approach this band's discog expecting JD part 2 or worse yet acting like albums like the ones I mentioned earlier are what they still would have done with Ian on board.



tldr i like New Order

Album Rating: 5.0

Sure, Hook is instantly recognizable, and S.Morris' rolling tom work is iconic. But there's a difference.



I read a rock critic a long time ago that argued that Joy Division had clear rockist orientations, and that those came from Curtis. They're absent in New Order. And once you hear that, you can't unhear it.



There's a dark seething energy underneath all the machines on this album that makes it their most krautrock-like. The downward pressure they achieve on ICB; the roiling underneath the stately keyboards and programmed beats on Truth. And so on.



They turned more dance and pop after this--and I'm a big fan of what they did. But this record sounds like nothing else, and I'm so glad it exists.

Good stuff