NEW ORDER
NEW ORDER:
BERNARD SUMNER: Vocals, Guitars, Keyboards, Synthesizers
STEPHEN MORRIS: Drums, Percussion, Keyboards, Synthesizers, Drum Programming
GILLIAN GILBERT: Keyboards and Synthesizers
PHIL CUNNINGHAM: Guitars, Keyboards, Synthesizers, Electronic Percussion
TOM CHAPMAN: Bass Guitar, Keyboards, Synthesizers, Backing Vocals
All music and lyrics by New Order except
"Singularity" and "Unlearn This Hatred" music and lyrics by New Order and Tom Rowlands
"Superheated" music and lyrics by New Order and Brandon Flowers
Produced by New Order, Stuart Price and Tom Rowlands
Released September 25, 2015
Absolutely terrific!!!!
New Order's "Music Complete" is not only one of the very best albums that I have heard in 2015, it is also the best album from the band to arrive in over 20 years. Sensational and fully intoxicating from beginning to end, New Order has emerged with a musical statement that is not only as innovative as their ground breaking albums from the 1980's,
Instead of arriving as an album that simply feels that it is time for a new album from New Order, "Music Complete" is a work that truly feels urgent. It is as if they have something to prove again, and perhaps they do, not solely due to the age of the legendary band, but especially after the departure of co-founder/bassist Peter Hook, who arrogantly proclaimed the band terminated upon his exit. If you have not even given the band one thought in quite some time, or if you are new to the fray, I cannot recommend this album highly enough as New Order's signature blend of melancholic angst and propulsive dance rhythms are more relevant than ever and they are operating at the peak of their musical powers.
Opening with music box sounding keyboards, "Music Complete" begins with the sustained storm clouds of "Restless." "What can you buy/That lifts a heavy heart up to the sky?" ponders Bernard Sumner, with his classic vocals that sound simultaneously disengaged and fully heartfelt. In a world where "the fiscal climate isn't looking good" and "the streets are running rivers full of blood," Sumner laments that "The more I see/The less, the less, that I believe" while also repeatedly asking "How much do you need?"
The album grows even more turbulent upon the album's second track, the propellant "Singularity," a selection that conversely delves into emotional paralysis as well as human inter-connectivity. "I can hear your cry out there/And I can feel you close to me," Sumner sings to an unknown person, possibly experiencing some sort of turmoil. The lament only builds with the plaintive chorus "One day at a time/Inch by inch/For every kiss/On lover's lips/For all lost souls/Who can't come home/Friends, not here/We shared our tears."
By now, I am certain that "Music Complete" is beginning to sound like more of a heavier thematic ride than what you may expect or even wish for. Yet, do trust me, dear readers and listeners as New Order has not created a downer of a listening experience as the music remains intoxicating and as inconstant motion as their finest work. But, also the band has never been one to simply create dance floor fluff, as New Order has always grounded the music with an emotional intensity that gives their specialized brand of dance music a tangible weight.
That being said, the fun quotient arrives in spades over the following three selections, all of which explore the affairs of the heart. Beginning with "Plastic," which almost feels like an update of "I Feel Love," the iconic Donna Summer/Giorgio Moroder track from 1977 merged with The Chemical Brothers' 1999 single "Out Of Control" (on which Bernard Sumner sang lead vocals), percolating synthesizers blaze full speed ahead leaving you within a hypnotic trance.
The almost too facile entitled "Tutti Frutti" is outstanding. The deep voiced clubland Lothario from New Order's 1989 single "Fine Time" has returned (and now apparently Italian), leading us into six minutes plus of discotheque bliss. From here, Tom Chapman, the band's new bassist, claims the spotlight as he brings the Chic influenced finger-snap funk of "People On The High Line" to sensational life. After those three selections, which nearly amounts to 20 minutes worth of continuous, infectious dance floor glory, the storm clouds from the beginning of the album flow back to a most disturbing effect with the album's dark centerpiece, "Stray Dog."
With this selection, Bernard Sumner hands his microphone over to the inimitable Iggy Pop, who delivers a powerfully growling spoken word performance over New Order's intensely driving musical landscape which completely and thrillingly presents the psychological torment of a wayward alcoholic, self described as "a cheat, a killer, or a liar," desperately trying to outrun his inner demons ("the darkness of the mire") in order to come in from the cold world, to the woman who has tamed him, his true love. "I'd rather be a lover than a liar," he proclaims. "I gave away my freedom and the calling of the wild/So that I could be with you...I chose to be with you." While this track professes that "the secret of happiness is true love," New Order, with this startling performance by Iggy Pop, proves that the pursuit of this particular brand of happiness is indeed a struggle.
The emotional struggles only continue during the final five songs of "Music Complete," all selections which contain great melodic and textural moods and (ahem) hooks that grab the ears in increasingly dynamic fashion. The blend of the acoustic and synthetic work musical magic with the bitter "Academic," a track that could be read as Sumner's kiss off to the departed Peter Hook, as their relationship has grown increasingly acrimonious. The reflective, nearly eight minute "Nothing But A Fool" recalls the classic New Order sound of "Ceremony" or "Love Vigilantes" as acoustic guitars drive the synthetic rhythms straight through to your melancholic hearts and romantic woes.
The kinetic "Unlearn This Hatred," with those hypnotizing EDM beats and textures firmly accentuate the themes of push/pull relationships filled with unresolved anger issues. "The Game," another gloriously seamless blending of the acoustic and synthetic, provides a return to the themes of the album's opening track which culminate triumphantly in the album's final song, "Superheated," composed and performed with Brandon Flowers of The Killers (itself a band named after the fictional musical group that appeared in the New Order's 2001 music video for "Crystal").
"Sometimes I wake up as angry as hell/I feel deserted, I feel unwell," Sumner sings openly. "But it's not your fault, no not at all/I was the reason for our downfall." But instead on wallowing in self-absorbed pain, this song finds New Order at a point of acceptance and growth, the kind that tends to arrive with personal evolution and therefore, "Music Complete" concludes on a high note of absolute grace.
New Order's "Music Complete" firmly establishes itself as one of the band's highest achievements as it stands as tall as their classic work. It is compulsively listenable, filled with stellar performances from the band from start to finish. And while it will not necessarily erase the memory and influence of Peter Hook, the band has found new purpose, drive and even inspiration in Hook's absence and has masterfully conceived of inventive ways to move forwards while honoring their deeply influential past.
While the return of keyboardist Gillian Gilbert is tremendously welcoming, and the musical assistance from The Chemical Brothers' Tom Rowlands provides some added force, Bernard Sumner in particular impressed me supremely, as I feel that he has delivered the very best singing of his career, with his three duets with La Roux's Elly Jackson as specific high-points during the album.
Most provocatively, I found "Music Complete" to serve as a richly textured song cycle taking the listener from a state of existential unease to one of personal resolution, all the while sweating it out in the nightclubs and on the dance floor to music that is allowing to stretch, live and breathe. This has been New Order's standard, their musical wheelhouse since their inception and as much as I loved their classic albums during my mid 1980s high school years, I do not ever think that I have ever found myself to feel so blissfully moved, so stirred, so transformed as much as I have been each time that I have spun their latest release.
Whatever the future of New Order may be from this point onwards in anyone's guess but if this were to be the conclusion to their 35 year musical journey, how wonderful it would be to go out on a note as high as the aptly entitled "Music Complete," an album where not one element has been omitted and everything exists in the most blissful place.
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