New Order - Observer Music Magazine - "Waiting for the Sirens Call" review March 2005

The Observer Music Magazine - Please yourself

March 2005

ARE NEW Order the best band to come out of Manchester? It’s a good question to which there is no easy answer. It depends, perhaps, not only on a band’s back catalogue but also on their current form. There was always something great about New Order — the fact that they didn’t give up when Ian Curtis killed himself almost 25 years ago; that they slipped with such ease between rock, and dance, providing the vital link between Seventies disco and Eighties house music; that when they could be bothered to put some effort into their gigs, they were nothing short of awesome — but over the years they have rarely been consistent.

Perhaps it’s because they don’t always get on: after all, 2001’s guitar-led Get Ready was New Order’s first album for eight years because until that point they couldn’t stand the sight of one another. And now, a year before Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook will turn 50, they are back once more, with an album that embraces guitars and rock, dance and synths — and lyrics inspired by Summer’s boat.

Apparently Sumner wanted to write an ‘up’ album, and Waiting For the Sirens’ Call is brimming with feel-good, radio-friendly tracks, from the easy electro of the first single ‘Krafty’ to the lazy dancehall beats of ‘I Told You So’ via the funked-up dance of ‘Jetstream’, with the Scissor Sisters' Ana Matronic on guest vocals. But there is something missing. Certainly there’s no hint of a ‘Sunrise’ or ‘Elegia’.

But then it’s 20 years since Low Life came out and how many bands consistently turn out albums that still sound modern two decades on? And, of course, New Order’s old stuff sounds contemporary because their influence on today’s musicians is immense. Hence the busy Matronic found the time to do backing vocals, while Franz Ferdinand are indebted to Peter Hook's basslines.

So what happened to the band who managed to marry not only dance and rock, but also ravers with football fans while remaining a cult-ish group who have sold a huge amount of records (most notably the bestselling 12-inch of all-time, ‘Blue Monday’)?

It is possible that in trying to please their fans, New Order have come unstuck. Sumner recently said they moved away from the guitar-heavy Get Ready because their live audiences responded better to dance music. Maybe New Order should be doing it for themselves instead of their fans, and should stop worrying about sounding too much like New Order. After all, if they sounded like the Eighties kings of techno-pop they once were, they really would be the best band to come out of Manchester.

Burn it: ‘Krafty’; ‘Waiting For the Sirens’ Call’