New Order and Joy Division reissues NME review

JE NE REGRETTE IAN

JOY DIVISION
Unknown Pleasures / Closer / Still / Substance

NEW ORDER
Movement / Power, Corruption & Lies / Low-life / Brotherhood / Technique / Substance
(All London/CD/Cassette)

THE MAN swallows Factory's finest and coughs out the predictable array of reissued goodies, affording us the welcome opportunity to binge on New Order/Joy Division's back catalogue and wonder whether anyone's really so lax that they don’t have the lot already.

Thirteen years on and ‘Unknown Pleasures’ is still not so much a record as a full-scale nuclear winter. As bleak and cold as the Ballard fantasies lan Curtis so admired, it offers no rest, no comfort, no hiding place at all, just a spine-jellying groan beset by sharklike guitars and baleful drums. ‘Day Of The Lords’ gnaws big lumps out of the soul, ‘New Dawn Fades‘ pokes the wounds with a pointy stick and ‘She’s Lost Control’ grinds with unending cruelty. The inspiration for an avalanche of existential bollocks in pop, and a benchmark against which, if nothing else, all those early Cure albums sound a bit silly. A horrible, horrible (10).

‘Closer’ clawed still more desperately for redemption as Joy Division's instrumental landscape became ever more stark and lagged. 'lsolation‘ annihilated a legion of saddo prejudices against the humble synth and wields the power to reduce bailiffs and pro-wrestlers to weeping wrecks. if there is any peace to be found here, it's the peace of the self-consciously forsaken. Give it another (10) but never play it at a party, unless you’re inviting Timmy Mallett and really want to f--- him up.

Half studio leftovers, half recorded gig, ‘Still’ smacked at the time of a Tony Wilson cash-in on the strength of Curtis’ tragic suicide, but in retrospect stands up remarkably well. Worth it for the barren wail of ‘The Only Mistake’ and a boss live versh of ‘Transmission’ which jumps all over the original. ‘Sister Ray’, on the other hand, is crap. (7)

Leaving us with ‘Substance', which tracks the JD singles story from the ugly deathpunk rattle of ’Warsaw' to the beauteous ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. Gasp as Curtis transmutes from spotty Manc snot-nose into mid-Atlantic messiah, but most of all wonder at the glassy perfection of ‘Atmosphere’. (9)

After that, the embryonic New Order’s initial attempts to grapple with their erstwhile leader's untimely departure were perhaps bound to flounder, and though ‘Ceremony’ promised great things, the ‘Movement’ LP exposed a gaping hole where Curtis once cut his ungainly rug. Barney appears unconvinced by the joys of this singing lark and only a real obsessive could mark it higher than (6).

Cut to 1983 and the contrast is astonishing. New Order have found their own voice, approaching mastery of the electro sheen they were staggering clumsily towards during ‘81-‘82. Power, Corruption & Lies' mixes slothful ennui with f--- you pig-headedness and excruciatingly sad songs, an equation which equals essential NO. With ‘Age Of Consent' they invent The Cure for the second time and ‘Leave Me Alone’ reintroduces the Hookster as a monster of high-bass melody. It's great and it's an (8).

And ‘Low-Life‘ is better. Despite Bernard’s baffling baloney about going out on the bevvy with his pistol-packing pal, ‘Perfect Kiss’ looks down from pop’s Mount Olympus and blows raspberries at the ant-like also-fans,  while 'Love Vigilantes‘ and 'Sunrise' make you wish he'd pick up a guitar
more often. Ignore the rather distracting array of remixes which came in its wake and you're left with New Order's first truly great work. (9)

As 'Brotherhood' went on to confirm, part of what makes New Order such a fascinating beast is the fact that you're never quite sure if they're taking the piss. It takes a peculiarly perverse sort of wit to weld lyrics of such occasionally towering banality to a soundtrack of such overpoweringly pristine melancholia. 'Every Little Counts’ sort of gives the game away because not even the inscrutable Sumner can sing "I think you are a pig/You should be in a zoo" and keep a straight face, but how often have we been fooled by their seeming loveliness? And should we give a toss if the payoff is that synth refrain from “Bizarre Love Triangle”? 'Brotherhood' takes the Tune Shuttle from Tune Central heading for the Planet of Tunes and earns a quibble-free (10).

To dance-ophobic accusations of outright heresy, NO razzed off to Ibiza to bathe in the Balearic vibe and returned in '89 with 'Technique', and though professing to swap their greatcoats for Bermuda shorts once and for all, managed to imbue the whole shebang with their own arch brand of deadpan flummery. Spot-on pop emerges with sunburning in the shape of 'Fine Time' and 'Vanishing Point', and only the shadow cast by the titanic 'Brotherhood' restricts its stature to a paltry (9).

London's final flourish of CD OD is NO's 'Substance', and of course the gang's all here, from the grim Lo-NRG of 'Blue Monday', through the heart-shagging 'Thieves Like Us' to the rather-too-antiseptic 'True Faith'. The profusion of production nonsense on 'Confusion' has left it looking rather dated, and the remake of 'Temptation' was always a duff scam, but the real rediscovery is the odd gem of a B-wing amid the truly dull remixerama which drags this down to a (7).

New Order's effortless cool has tempted 'art'-obsessed critics to compare their elusive pop masterworks with Joy Division's harrowing assault and find them wanting. Looking back, they've allowed the glowering presence of one dead bloke to cloud their judgement. In a very different way, New Order were consistently the best thing about the '80s. Look upon their works, ye mighty, and despair.


Danny Frost