Ten Great Albums From 2015, #10: New Order Music Complete (Mute Records)
Sorry Peter Hook apologists, I’m not hearing your argument about his departure from the band. In fact, it’s one of the most tired ones I ever hear about any band: “It’s not [insert band] without [insert member] because I’m nostalgic and don’t like my precious memories disrupted. I also have no faith that [other members of said band] have the capability to carry on in the same spirit of the lineup that I liked best.” A band is musicians, a band is not a name. Fuming over who is or who isn’t in the lineup says more about you than it does about the band. Not to mention, Hook’s high-tuned signature bass sound was studied and imitated by countless fanboys the world over (this reviewer included), and Tom Chapman does a better-than-fine job filling those shoes. Further, this is a case of addition by subtraction, as keyboardist Gillian Gilbert returns to the fold.
Personnel aside, this is New Order’s strongest album since (at least) Technique, and a gloriously emphatic return to the dance roots that made their early singles into generational anthems. There isn’t anything as transcendent as that moment you first heard “Blue Monday” at your local dance club (in fact, I don’t think such a record is mathematically possible these days), but what Music Complete delivers is eleven well-constructed, thoroughly written songs that eschew nostalgia in favor of craftsmanship.
The band also enlists some A-listers to great avail. New Order uber-fan Brandon Flowers makes a stellar appearance on “Superheated” (his own band, The Killers, nicked their name from a fictional band in a New Order video), but the most welcome surprise comes from none other than Iggy Pop reading Bernard Sumner’s poem “Stray Dog”; one of the most unsettling and straightforward studies of middle-aged disenchantment that you’re likely to find.
Speaking honestly, I didn’t know New Order still had this kind of album in them, but hearing their clearly renewed vigor reminds me it’s never too late for any of us.
