New Order - Power, Corruption and Lies (1983)

As I explained back in 2022, myself and my little group of pals were Joy Division obsessives up until this came out, or at least I was. I'm not sure whether the other two kept going. Blue Monday was fucking terrific and then somehow I became distracted and forgot to buy this, despite all that was promised by the associated Peel session. Years passed and I heard the occasional thing on the radio, but not much that grabbed me as had Ceremony and Everything's Gone Green, and I liked True Faith well enough but it sounded like an impersonation of New Order to my ears. I bought this album, almost certainly because it was in a bargain bin, but have no idea as to where, when, or even whether I actually listened to it. Surprised to find it in my collection a couple of years ago, I gave it a spin and recognised only the tracks they had already recorded for Peel. It's bollocks, and very, very boring, I decided, as you may possibly recall.

Well, I've given it another shot and have to conclude I was either wrong, or listening far too hard, or with the wrong ears. It's not a patch on the glacial intensity of Movement, which I still hold to be the finest thing ever committed to wax by any of those involved, but I realise had I not heard anything by any of those involved before this one, I probably would have given it more of a chance. The production is efficient, but inevitably leaves the songs sounding like a top of the range demo compared to what Martin Hannett did, and even compared to the efforts of whoever produced the Peel session for that matter. Also, having presumably laid the ghost of Joy Division to rest on the first one, this was a band giving it another go and finding their feet all over again, hence the slightly schizophrenic mix of material - almost like the work of two different groups, a much happier version of Joy Division, and some New York disco act who couldn't leave their sequencer alone, thus obliging the bass player to impersonate a lead guitarist on half of the tracks.

So it's an odd one, a transitional affair, I suppose, but there's a pleasantly breezy quality to it, possibly informed by the giddy delirium of a brand new day knowing you won't have to play songs where Nazi war atrocities serve as a metaphor for feeling a bit glum because your bird just found out you've been knobbing Sharon from the chippy; and I've honestly always preferred Bernard Sumner's vocal to that of his predecessor, even when he can't quite reach the note, or the lyric sounds like it needed more work.

This time last year, or possibly the year before that, I'd developed the impression of post-Movement New Order as arguably the most boring band in the world. It's strangely comforting to know that I can reach my age and still be wrong about something.