New Order - Observer "Waiting for the Sirens Call" review

The Observer - It won't make you cringe, but...

NEW ORDER
Waiting for the Sirens Call

FOR SUCH A celebrated musical force, New Order have, occasionally, been underwhelming. They may have written the biggest-selling 12in single ever, ‘Blue Monday’, in 1983, and, a clutch of sublime songs that cleverly congealed the guitar-bass-drums blood of rock with electronics. But there has always been an evenness about their momentum that could quickly slip into... well... boredom. They have been masters of steady, steely percolation rather than build and climax.

Get Ready, New Order’s 2001 foray out of their Manchester boltholes after eight years away, amped up the rock, but to no earthshaking effect. Working back, 1993’s Republic album had its idle patches, as did 1986’s Brotherhood, the record that preceded New Order’s totemic Technique record of 1989, the album Waiting for the Sirens’ Call reputedly harks back to.

The ordinariness of Bernard Sumner’s vocals and the blandness of his writing have been with us for a long time. When Sumner gets it right, his understatement and blokeish froideur are one of New Order’s greatest strengths. Similarly, when New Order throb with forbidding purpose, they are superb. But when they are so-so, they can be very so-so indeed.

It’s worth remembering this as the new New Order album slips into the CD player. The sounds they pioneered are back in fashion, and the band that preceded New Order, Joy Division, are, even more in vogue. American popstars like Gwen Stefani are begging them to play on their records. Everyone wants Waiting for the Sirens’ Call to be a classic New Order album so badly it’s palpable. There’s even a Scissor Sister, Ana Matronic, guesting on ‘Jetstream’, the only female presence here now that keyboard player Gillian Gilbert has retired.

Even allowing for New Order’s mild-mannered way around a rock song, though, Waiting for the Sirens’ Call frequently fails to grab you by the lapels.

The excellent sound design is immediately apparent. The new dynamism in Bernard Sumner’s vocals is welcome. There’s a three-song section at the front where the expressive rock of ‘Hey Now What You Doing’ segues into the pulse of the title track and then into the upbeat single, ‘Krafty’, that shows New Order can still do this perfect pop stuff in their sleep.

New Order 2005 are more about warmth and humanity than understated sombreness, so expecting echoes of their early records, let alone Technique, is foolhardy. But on Sirens’ Call, they seem to have forgotten how to make a dance record and the clubbier tracks misfire badly. ‘Jetstream’ is cheesy and bland, While ‘Guilt’ despoils its excellent verses with a chorus that makes you want to weep, it’s so cheap and nasty. ‘Turn’ just about brings the album back on track With a nice jangle and then it’s all over. Their foray into reggae, ‘I Told You So’, is not as ill-advised as it looks on paper, but remains muddled.

Waiting for the Sirens' Call merely exists, not bad enough to warrant a cringe or a lunge towards the stop button. It just keeps ticking over. Should you ever have to explain the appeal of this sometimes brilliant, sometimes infuriating band, this is one of those records you’ll conveniently forget to mention.