Cuttings

Blood Simple New Order Low-Life THE contradictions, the confusions, the confessions continue. "Low-Life" is New Order really, it's as deliberately basic as that. Those one-string sentimentalisms still stir the senses, those explosive dynamics still jolt complacency, that disco blast still sounds cheap and mechanical and yet thumps home, those lyrics still sting like a slap and sometimes embarrass. It’s all so minimal, it's mountainous. Somehow, through a process of brutal attrition, New Order have established a cleaving purity. And remember all that Nazi business? Well, it’s not over yet, it's not that inappropriate. "Low-Life" functions with fascist intensity, shepherding the sympathies, every note honed for maximum impact. There's nothing on this record that isn't essential to its purpose and there's really no escaping its traumatic effect. It uplifts, it begins to live a life of its own beyond calculation and maintains the Ne...

LOW RIDERS - Sounds NEW ORDER 'Low Life' (Factory FACT 100) **** Perhaps the new dawn really is upon us. New Order, if not yet allowing the full glare of daylight to fall upon their faded carpets, have at least allowed a half-light to penetrate the black bedroom curtains. It may even be that our dour friends have had a discreet boot up the bum. Because guess what? Opener 'Love Vigilantes' grabs you by the throat and yells 'Dream Syndicate!'. A slab of American pie among mushy peas, and the direction suits New Order as naturally as a baggy suit. The Beatles play ‘Blue Monday' - you‘d better believe it! Though the rest of the package doesn't quite match up to this spectacular and unexpected promise, it does give a less bittersweet, more palatable slice of listening. Grey industralist disco fans won't, though, cast it aside with a snarl of the upper lip and a flick of the flat top. But they should approve of this new taste of variety which...

NME - DRIVEN SNOW OF THE SOUL NEW ORDER Low-life ( Factory ) WHO CARES to be pure in this old rock music? Pop flesh bumps and grinds in our faces without respite - and any old piece of meat, whether it be Pete Bums or Pat Benatar, will do. The savage amusement this spectacle affords has grown cold. And now back come New Order, the driven snow of the soul, with a record to close everbody's mouth. Their titles always reflect cruelly on their content. As 'Movement' was immobile and 'Power,  Corruption And Lies' spotlessly true, so 'Low-life' is celestial: it seems to gaze down from heaven. The sound is all ice and glass and brittle bells. Hook's bass lines don't boom, they hum in an elastic brogue that pumps the heart of the songs. When Albrecht sings it's a sound so human that, in the midst of pop’s throng of digital voices, it seems unearthly. Just as Joy Division churned on the mark of Curtis’ sepulchral tones, so New Order - with t...