New Order continue their long streak of violently tepid albums with this nicely artworked opus which, to be fair, isn't the worst of them. Despite the vocals being upsettingly milquetoast, 1 is quite fun instrumentally for example, and in general the album does have quite a lot of depth to its prod and its instrumental layers - it's just that the overall songs in this shiny frame are boring and the vocals hardly achieve the bare minimum for passable. 2 is laughably cheesy, but at least the latter part of 3 is instrumental and so passes much more nicely. 4 is well produced but pretty standard young giant type rock with cheesy as darn heck vocals, and in places it feels like they left out a track, like it is a well produced foundation but with the substance missing. It also is quite apparent that little effort went into transitions and album construction here. 5's like watching your dad's cover band and being kinda supportive but also embarassed a bit. 6 tries a little more I'll concede, but I also will say that a lot of the hooks and motifs I hear in this album reminded me of other songs by other artists more than a few times. 7's intro really isn't trying at all, but the unfold guitar is kinda fun if you overlook the lyrics. 8, much like this whole album, just passes. Not their worst effort, but a pretty uninspired effort stiill. 2.5
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