New Order - Hamburg 12 April 1984

NME - UBERMENSCH LIKE US

NEW ORDER
Hamburg Trinity

LIKE SO much that has inspired, charmed or annoyed us ever since 'Rock Around The Clock' 30 years ago. the success of New Order's music remains an emotional puzzle. So many words have been spilled in trying to unravel that hopelessly complex set of processes which constitutes our response to music that it would seem a sweet, easy surrender just to listen, to forget explanation. But is immediate sensation the only basis for appreciation ? We owe it to ourselves to try to understand why New Order — four pleasant, unremarkable people — can hold such sway over so many of us.

In Hamburg New Order didn't play a wrong note all evening: it was the first date on this tour that had happened. New Order, you see, are fallible. Only the deafest fan would not concede that they have made some disappointing records. And yet from the very first bars of 'Age Of Consent' it is impossible not to be entranced by the spell they cast. Individually the constituent parts are impressive enough — Steve Morris' crashing, thumping drums, Peter Hook's brutal bass, the carefull colourings of Gillian's keyboards, Bernard Albrecht's painfully honest voice and guitar. But somehow the sum total is another matter altogether.

Whether on 'rock' songs— 'Age Of Consent', 'ICB', 'Your Silent Face', '586' - or 'dance' songs — 'Confusion', 'Thieves Like Us', 'Blue Monday', 'Everything's Gone Green' — New Order project an awesome air of authority currently unmatched by any other British group. It is by no means certain, however, that this is to any great degree of New Order's making. Such is the web Of myth and half-truth which surrounds this group that it is now virtually impossible to separate the 'real' New Order from the Joy Division/ New Order phenomenon. Are we then enthralled more by a legend than by the strength and originality of New Order's current music?

Matthew Jefferies