New Order "True Faith" Review

NEW ORDER: True Faith/1963 
(Factory)

Produced and co-written by the godlike Pet Shop Boys' producer Stephen Hague, New Order's single continues the strangest career in music '1963' is a song about being shot by someone who loves you and the chorus is "Johnny! Don't point that gun at me". 'True Faith' is also a combination of drumbeat thunder and melancholy, and both songs emphasise the fact that what instruments New Order play and what words they sing are of the slightest relevance, since the records are quite simply excuses for reassembling minor chords over huge rhythm trades, and thereby tugging your heart out. In this they are very like The Pet Shop Boys, actually, whose version of 'Subculture' I fully expect to hear any day now. The greatest pop band in the world (both of them, that is).