2001 09 New Order and Joy Division albums, Mojo

Touched by the hand of God

Joy Division and New Order, album by album, by Andrew Male 

Unknown Pleasures

AUGUST 1979

Joy Division's debut, recorded in April 1979 at Stockport's famed Strawberry Studios, retained the nervy, paranoid energy of punk but thanks to Hooky's subterranean bass, Bernard's febrile guitar and Stephen Morris's relentless echoing drums ended up some place entirely 'other'. What with Martin Hannett's effects-dappled production - glass smashing, metal doors creaking - and Curtis's stark narratives, the whole thing now sounds like the soundtrack to some dystopic J.G. Ballard drama about existential crisis and uncertain provenance in an NCP car park.

Closer

JULY 1980

From the futuristic tribal clamour of Atrocity Exhibition to the wintery advance of Decades, Closer throbs and hums with a steady threat. Curtis's lyrics progress from grim prediction to ultimate resignation. Encased in the hard pack-ice of Martin Hannett's production, the whole album moves with the rhythm of a military procession towards some inevitable cliff edge. A work of genius, certainly, but not the thing to put on if feeling delicate.

Still 

October 1981

To combat the wealth of shoddy Joy Division bootlegs flooding the market in the wake of Ian Curtis's death, Factory decided to issue their own beautifully-packaged, band-endorsed, shoddy bootleg. Outtakes, left-overs, scraps, a couple of classics (The Sound Of Music, Dead Souls) and their final Birmingham University gig from May 2, 1980. Sixth-form students carried their copies with pride but it's less than essential. The live gig, incidentally, sounds like it was recorded on an Edison cylinder. You're better off investing in the recent Joy Division live CD, Les Bains Douches 18 December 1979.

Movement

November 1981

Aside from the driving, reverberating Dreams Never End (Hooky on vocals), the stark electro thrash of The Him and Stephen Morris's near Afro-beat rhythms. New Order's debut remains something of nervy mess. Edging towards a new Northern model of awkward angst disco, Movement is ultimately let down by too many tricksy panning effects (Senses) and hesitant vocal performances. One of Peter Hook's favourite New Order albums.

Power, Corruption And Lies 

MAY 1983

Hard to convey quite how new this sounded back in 1983. Self-produced at Pink Floyd's Britannia Row Studios, this was New Order crafting a modern pop sound. It's all there on album opener Age Of Consent: Peter Hook's shockingly jaunty bass line, Stephen Morris's 'speedy' drumming and Barney's faux-naif schoolbook lyrics. Futuristic, speed-driven, exuberant, confident. Also features Blue Monday trial-run 586 and the first instance of Barney's lyrical rudery in Your Silent Face.

Low-life

MAY 1985

A low time for the band. Yet, from a mire of booze, pills, self-hatred and depression came their most 'up' album so far. Recorded at Britannia Row Studios with Michael Johnson, the band turned Barney's lyrics - a gloriously naive hotchpotch of folk-protest pastiche (Love Vigilantes) and encoded ruminations on wanking ( Sub-Culture, The Perfect Kiss) - into multi-textured; urgent squalls of techno-pop manna. The best driving album ever. Even if you can't drive.

Brotherhood

OCTOBER 1986

Vastly underrated, even by the band themselves. Admittedly schizophrenic, reflecting the tensions in the band at the time, Brotherhood's shifts from the dense, tubercular production of opening track Paradise to the dreamy acoustic folk of As It Is When It Was. Apart from the inclusion of slightly below-par 'protest' single State Of The Nation, Brotherhood remains exuberantly all-over-the-shop, neatly encapsulated by the baffling Eric Satie banjo japery of Every Second Counts ("I think you are a pig/You should be in a zoo").

Substance 

AUGUST 1987

Surely one of the greatest band best-ofs of all time. A double CD featuring all of New Order's singles and B-sides so far (except Cries And Whispers from 1981's Everything's Gone Green 12-inch). Reportedly compiled on the orders of Factory boss Tony Wilson because he wanted to hear all of his favourite band's singles, in order, in the car. Oh, the power! Let down slightly by 're-recorded' versions of some tracks and different vocal takes on others. Proof that, for such a consummate album band, they were also the perfect singles hit factory.

Technique 

JANUARY 1989

New Order go to Ibiza. New Order go to awful clubs, take drugs, record endless hi-hat drum tracks at Mediterranean Studios, argue. New Order come home, go to Real World Studios, record masterpiece. As well as being the pinnacle of the band's joyously cathartic pop-techno, Technique was also Bernard Sumner s finest song writing hour - tales of romantic fixation that flitted from bitterness and recrimination (Love Less, Round And Round) to optimistic re-birth (All The Way, Dream Attack). Perfect.

Republic 

May 1993

Following a much-needed break, during which all four members dabbled in various 'solo projects', New Order re-unite. They all hate each other and, to make matters worse, are losing £10,000 a day as Factory and The Hacienda go down the pan. However, despite Stephen Hague's weedy, high-gloss production there are still points of wonder, specifically the comeback single Regret. Not essential by any stretch but, as a record of a band in crisis, curiously appealing.