Cuttings

Melody Maker - BROTHERS GRIM BROTHERHOOD Factory LIKE the trick life played on Orson Welles, a calamitous collision of accident and genius has chucked New Order’s career into reverse, doomed them to the bickering of retro-perspective. For everyone lauding their survival, there's someone resenting it. For every plaudit greeting their supposed pursuit of simple purity, there’s an upbraiding for their assumed lack of concern. “Brotherhood” can’t escape raising all the familiar questions. Or doesn’t want to. I can't decide. Infuriatingly enigmatic, every song strains between adrenalised instrumental passages of thundering majesty and lyrics of such embarrassing openness that the listener is repeatedly frustrated and forced to impugn motives to their apparent schizophrenia. Is this tension between frailty and fury a callous formula or shivering naked naivety? I can’t decide. When “Way Of Life” lamely lullabyes across Colourfield terrain, the starbursts of energised guit...

NME - ART OF THE STATE NEW ORDER Brotherhood (Factory) PRAY SILENCE for the thinking person's Andrew Ridgeley: “You look like a pig/You should be in a (heh, heh) zoo (heh, heh)!”  This is a wonderful LP made by very silly people. It comes complete with the stereo horseplay of vocalist Barney making stupid noises - a strangely diffident clown making this glorious hullaballoo sound so easy They could have taken it further. It seems that previous working titles for the record were 'Fuck' and 'The Smell Of It'. Boys will be boys . . . poor Gillian. 'Brotherhood' is the title of a book exposing freemasons. Two years later, the author dropped dead. Funny thing, life. 'Brotherhood' swings in a more blither fashion than the sulky 'Low-Life'. 'Paradise' bowls you over in the way that the Stones’ 'Miss You' should have done. Barney proves to be a man of many voices, and amidst these borrowed manners it sounds odd to hear h...