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New Order - Get Ready
ARTIST: New Order
TITLE: Get Ready
RELEASE DATE: August 27, 2001
STYLES: Alternative Rock
TONES: Gloomy, Rousing, Wry, Brooding
CUSTOMERS RATING: 4 of 5 stars
JOHN BUSH / AMG
Instead of settling down in front of the mixing board for another dance album (a lá Technique or Republic), New Order returned in 2001 with a sound and style they hadn't played with for over a decade. Unsurprisingly bored by the stale British club scene circa 2001, the band opened Get Ready with a statement of purpose, a trailer single ("Crystal") featuring a host of longtime New Order staples: a sublime melody, an inscrutable set of lyrics, a deft, ragged guitar line kicking in for the chorus, and Peter Hook's yearning bass guitar taking a near-solo role. Though there are several allowances for the electronic-dance form New Order helped develop, Get Ready is a very straight-ahead album, their first work in 15 years that's focused on songwriting and performance rather than grafted dance techniques. (Of course, the band proved themselves far more than studio hands at several points, stretching back over twenty years to Joy Division's landmark Unknown Pleasures, as well as later New Order LPs like 1985's Low-life and 1986's Brotherhood.)
Listeners familiar with the blueprint of early New Order work will find much to love on Get Ready, from the tough rockers "60 Miles an Hour" and "Primitive Notion" to pastoral downtempo material like "Turn My Way," "Vicious Streak," and the melodica-driven closer "Run Wild." This naked songcraft, however, does reveal a few of the band's deficiencies. Bernard Summer's lyrics drift toward the inane: "I'll be there for you when you want me to/I'll stand by your side like I always do/In the dead of night it'll be alright/cuz I'll be there for you when you want me to." And the band can't help but identify with a younger generation of music-makers, inviting Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie over for "Rock the Shack" and turning in a dense, chaotic production that's all but de rigeur for Gillespie but very strained for New Order. (The other main collaborative track, with stranded Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan, is surprisingly unembarassing.) Even for fans who don't need any convincing, Get Ready is a true "grower," an album that reveal its delicious secrets — sublime songcraft, introverted delivery, collaborative musicianship — slowly and only after several listens.
ANDREW HARRISON / Q MAGAZINE
Seems like we’ve been here before. The last New Order comeback, 1993’s Republic, was a medium-sized hit machine but a meek disappointment to anyone who survived the terror of the '80s sustained by this defining band and their perverse hybrid of rock, disco and Kraftwerk.
Republic produced a few decent singles, of which Regret remains one of their best. But four years had passed since its predecessor Technique, and the fusion of rock and dance which New Order pioneered had become the industry standard. Worse, Republic carried the sense that this most wilful of bands were happy to settle down and conform to that standard. There would be no more vaulting experiments, no more singles recorded on acid and eight-minute tracks produced to test a new drum machine – just clean drum loops and a safe enclosure for bass pig Peter Hook to stomp about in. Republic did quite well in America.
And now here we are again. Another impossibly long interval – this time eight years, long enough to encompass Joy Division’s career twice over – means that in 2001, to many music fans, New Order return not so much as lost heroes but as a mystery. Some pop consumers were paying more attention to 2 Unlimited last time around.
It should be pointed out that New Order have been nowhere near as idle as others of the one-album-a-decade brigade. Each member has made their own music, even if none of it constituted a proper New Order record, or even a quarter of one. But even so, their seventh album proper arrives less to the hysteria triggered by The Stone Roses’ Second Coming (the Marley’s Ghost of long-gestation LPs) and more to the mild intrigue which greeted the re-emergence of Stereo MC’s. In an unrecognisable world of S Clubs and Limp Bizkits, where the very notion of "alternative" seems as redundant as flour rationing, is there space for post-punk experimental rock’n’roll disco?
Except... there’s something about this title that jars. New Order records are supposed to sound blank and austere, like Movement, Brotherhood, Substance: full of Eastern Bloc promise, wholly in theme with Mancunian minimalism. Get Ready is unfamiliar and simple, an all-too-human challenge to get on up and have it out. It doesn’t fit the pattern; it’s like finding a Radiohead album called Party People In The Place To Be. And it makes you suspect that this time things will be different.
The first surprise is, it rocks. Get Ready’s first single and opening track Crystal feints the listener with a sheeny little electronic overture, then lets loose a splurging riff from Sumner’s guitar – New Order’s other trademark instrument. The touchstones are 1983’s Age Of Consent or Technique’s Dream Attack, but louder and fuzzed-over. As Crystal builds, a small army of Peter Hooks marches in to execute a spectacular synchronised growl-off. After 20-odd years, the patent New Order bass rumble is still there, gnarly with all the aggression that Republic lacked. The song is about mad love, how it knocks you sideways and how good that feels. "Keep it coming," Sumner begs, and New Order sound hungry for the first time since about 1989.
By the middle of the second track, 60 Miles Per Hour, it’s clear that this is going to be a very different kind of New Order record. No more alienation here: with brilliant absurdity, Sumner wants to run away to a desert island and worship pagan idols (Republic was more about nipping down the shops in a Ford Mondeo). The track takes a country-twang turn and comfortably out-rocks Crystal. In place of New Order’s usual metronomic robot funk there’s a euphoric human groove. If the name wasn’t taken you’d call it daft punk.
Assisted by retired Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan, Turn My Way completes an opening triptych that can fairly be described as stunning – and gives Get Ready its first emotionally piercing moment. New Order are no longer young, but Turn My Way is, defiantly, a young man’s song. It’s about the desire to stay different and refusing to play the game. What might sound trite from 20-year-olds gains weight when it comes from a band who’ve seen a bit of life and who, to be honest, sounded half-whipped last time around.
As on the greatest New Order songs, a rough-edged, broken-hearted melody alchemises a mundane lyric – "I don’t wanna be like other people are/Don’t wanna own a key/Don’t wanna wash my car" – into something strangely worthwhile and even empowering. Corgan’s harmonies are supernaturally appropriate on this, Get Ready’s centrepiece. Turn My Way is about choosing your path in life and sticking with it and, as New Order music, it’s up there with Run and Your Silent Face.
Throughout, Get Ready is full of, well, unknown pleasures. Slow Jam (yes, they have a song called Slow Jam) does not in fact sound like a Barry White symphony for satin sheets. Instead it’s Guns N’ Roses’ Paradise City rewritten for a substance-hungry Sumner, with much rocking and breaking-glass sound effects. With howlin’ tomcat Bobby Gillespie on board, Rock The Shack goes even more over the top on a riff transplanted from XTRMNTR’s Shoot Speed Kill Light. Primitive Notion is both a middle finger to an unfaithful lover and an invitation to all-night sex with same. Stephen Morris’s drums star as they did in the days of Joy Division, but this time they’re up against interstellar acid house as a backdrop. Everywhere, the old components are reshuffled, renewed or just piled up in the corner and torched.
If there’s a disappointment in Get Ready it’s that Morris’s and Gillian Gilbert’s beautiful electronica and dancefloor stompers have been flattened by all the rockin’ (family issues ruled Gilbert out of the recording process at an early stage). There was a time when it was said that New Order only had two types of songs – the one that was photocopied by The Cure and the other that ploughed a parallel furrow to the Pet Shop Boys – but at least that was one more than most. Now that demarcation is ended. Get Ready synthesises the Hooky rock-a-ramas, Sumner’s Torremolinos disco tendencies and the sonic-cathedrals element more effectively than ever before, at the expense of some variety.
But so what? New Order have made better records than this, but not many with such an emotional charge and the expansive noise to carry it off. Get Ready shows that there’s a way to be 45 years old without dissolving into empty indolence; that you can keep your hunger and even rediscover it when you thought it had gone.
The last track, Run Wild, is a beautiful, acoustically driven song of love-against-death and its closing couplet is a simpler, more heartfelt lyric than Sumner has delivered in years: "I'm gonna live 'til I die/I’m gonna live to get high." Such words often sound callow from a young band and embarrassing from a veteran one. But here it sounds like a simple declaration that New Order are back in the game. Get Ready is the sound of a great band breaking free of their past before your ears. Who’d have thought it?
KEVIN MAIDMENT / AMAZON.CO.UK
On Get Ready, New Order, the band who wrote the immediate future of electronic dance music on 1983's omnipotent "Blue Monday", return ready to rock--there's nothing vaguely Arthur Baker or Balearic here. For the most part, Get Ready keeps the keyboards trim and unobtrusive and revels in raw drums and wires; Bernard Sumner's funk-inclined, scratchy dog-with-fleas guitars; Peter Hook's shin-level punk bass lines; sinuous human greyhound Steve Morris--possibly the thinnest chap ever to grace a drum stool--kicking the machines into touch and keeping time with clockwork proficiency. All that, and those finely conceived bittersweet melodies, plus some questionable phrases: "It's like honey, you can't buy it with money" sings Sumner on the otherwise splendid "Crystal", a natural, guitar-rock pop-song successor to the mighty "Regret". And if "60 Miles an Hour" is a mite melodically predictable, then "Primitive Notion" is a thrilling throwback to Joy Division's "Heart and Soul". Try humming that bass line, tapping out that drum pattern and then compare the line "Don't look at me with your critical smile" to Ian Curtis's "I observe with a critical eye". Whatever, there's a cracking chorus right up there in the naggingly memorable "True Faith" / "Love Will Tear Us Apart" category. Of the much-publicised collaborations (the Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan, Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie) it's the lusty half-Stones/half-Stooges leather-trousered swagger of "Rock the Shack"--with the Primal Scream frontman mewing like a lecherous tomcat--which steals the limelight. But in the grand old tradition of leaving the best until last, "Run Wild" is perhaps New Order's most touching moment--folky acoustic guitar, lonesome sentiment, teardrop melodica, the line "If Jesus comes to take your hand, I won't let go" and warm strings sweeping in to offer support like the touch of a much-cherished comfort blanket. Get Ready is a great album, one which secures New Order's future far further than they could have imagined.
ROUGH GUIDE ROCK
There’s a myth that as one of the greatest singles bands of the past twenty years, New Order have never made a truly great album — Get Ready does little to dispel this notion. All the right elements are here, and from a distance this is classic New Order: there are burgeoning basslines, danceable beats, Barney’s delicate vocal and the whole thing is awash with power chords. Yet there’s a spark missing. The opener, and first single, "Crystal" is full of life, but the problems are already evident: the lyrics are trite. Barney’s words have been described as possessing a naïve beauty, they don’t — they’re crass and fester throughout the set, distracting from the superb instrumental constructions. The collection is at its worst on the bland "Someone Like You" and the truly dreadful "Rock The Shack". On the plus side "Primitive Notion" has a fascinating rhythm, great melody and is alive with ideas. Let’s hope it’s a future single that can be rescued from its surroundings on Substance Volume 3.
PETER NALDRETT @ MUSIC-CRITIC.COM
The return of New Order, eight years after they released Republic, has been given the kind of attention you’d expect to see if The Beatles or, dare we say, Jesus, decided to make a return. The Manchester outfit, which some say invented dance music when they first formed New Order and, before that, Joy Division, have been given that much of pedestal to strum their guitars on.
The formula that has made them so successful is now well known, and this surprise new outing, Get Ready, is a continuation of that rather than an amazing revelation after their second coming. Most will have now heard the new single, "Crystal," and recognize that it has all the New Order hallmarks: tight production to the point of over perfection, pleasant tunes, Bernard Sumner’s familiar voice and oft-appalling lyrics, and heavy guitar bass line. Familiar it may be, but as equally brilliant as past classics such as "Regret" and "Thieves Like Us."
"Crystal" is followed by other potential singles like "60 Miles An Hour," "Vicious Streak" and "Slow Jam" and the quality songs are padded out by less appealing, but not disgraceful, tracks that include a large slice of instrumental action. "Primitive Notion" has an interesting wild side, while "Rock The Shack" doesn’t disguise its ambitions to be a straight rock track that the ageing lads gloriously fail to carry off. And you may find the "Run Wild" finale interesting, as it blends a pleasant, rousing tune with Christian-folky lyrics.
New Order are at their best when occupying the grey ground between pop, rock and dance, somehow managing to be all three without being crass and creating their own musical niche, joined recently by the likes of The Lightning Seeds. Their history is stunning, even if their only number one, "World In Motion," was propelled there by England football fans in 1990 and was actually written by comedian/actor Keith Allan.
But, as has been the case before, the main cringeworthy New Order moments come in the form of Sumner’s lyrics, which are at times shallow and uninspiring. The worst victim of this is on "Slow Jam" with the lines:
"The sea was very rough\It made me feel sick\But I like kind of stuff\It beats arithmetic."
Get Ready is the kind of standard New Order album we came to expect in the 80s and early 90s. This second coming won’t cause any revolutions but it’s well worth adding to the CD rack.
Leigh Maude, CUSTOMER
New Order, the single most important group between the Sex Pistols and Nirvana are back after 8 years with a corker of an album and NO/JD fans will be delighted to hear, so is 'that bass!' A welcome return to form after 1993's messy Republic (the classic Regret excepted), Get Ready is dominated by Peter Hook's beautiful bass, Barney Albrecht's chopping guitar (theres lots of it) and the sound of a band out to show the pop kids (Travis, Radiohead et al) how it can and should be done. Never a group to do the expected either, New Order have even recruited a certain Mr Billy Corgan to guest on the soaring "Turn My Way". Bobby and Innes from the Primals are in there too on the punky "Rock the Shack". But its still that classic New Order sound/feeling that shines unashamedly through. A reviewer of perhaps their finest album (to date), 1989's Technique, said "never have veterans sounded so arrogantly brilliant" and perhaps it's even more appropriate than ever in 2001 with Get Ready. (4 of 5 stars)
NME
1.'Crystal'
Characteristically downbeat, 'Crystal' is the sound of a big New Order comeback single - moodily mid-paced, growling metallic guitars and backing singers, not to mention much improved vocal abilities from Bernard Sumner. Peter Hook's bass is still present along with Sumner's constant 'whoops!'. The song, seemingly about a relationship, features the lyric: "We're like crystal".
2. '60 Miles An Hour'
Possibly a second single, '60 Miles An Hour' is a bouncier, remix-friendly track. Hook's unique bass sound is even more prominent, and the track enjoys some big production treatment. Featuring the lyric "I'll stand by your side/Like I always do", it maintains the slightly depressing relationship problems theme.
3.'Turn My Way'
Featuring Billy Corgan's voice and a Pumpkins guitars sound, this is perhaps the most blatant stab at US success. It begins with a crashing, Pumpkins sounding noise and Corgan's voice, before Sumner's own vocals kick in. It's still a tuneful New Order song, but Corgan's influence occasionally takes it into American rock territory.
4.'Vicious Streak'
After three fairly punchy songs, 'Vicious Streak' is a slower, keyboard-dominated song with sharp beats. The drawn-out, instrumental start is reminiscent of the 'Elegia' track on New Order's 'Low Life' album, but Sumner does eventually provide some vocals to accompany the shimmering, laid back electronic sounds.
5.'Close Range'
Back uptempo, this is noisier, more dance friendly and could have been the much-talked about collaboration with the Chemical Brothers (which is not currently on the album). Slickly produced and more pacy than the previous songs, Hook's bass is almost absent until the final moments.
6.'Someone Like You'
Soft organ sounds and smooth New Order grooves feature alongside an acoustic guitar on 'Someone Like You', a track which has a possible Motown influence contributing to its unusually chilled but funky vibe. Even Sumner's occasionally iffy lyrics ("We're having the time of our lives/ We're lost in a cruel paradise") can't detract from the pristine production.
7.'Sabotage'
This starts, oddly, like a cheesy chart ballad. But the catchy 'Sabotage' is soon invaded by a multitude of sounds - guitars, electronics, vocals - which make for a darkly mixed-up New Order song. It's also further proof that they've moved on from the dance influence which was dominant on 1993's 'Republic'.
8.'Player In The League'
The only embarrassing moment on the record, this is New Order's (too late) bid to provide the theme music to the new ITV 'Match Of The Day'. Jangly with a slick Pet Shop Boys production sound, 'Player In The League' is a follow-up to 'World In Motion' and Bernard Sumner's moving tribute to his beloved Manchester United. But that's no excuse for lyrics like "I can see you everywhere/ In the ground and in the air".
9.'Primitive Notion'
This begins with an edgy bass and live drum sound and is probably the darkest song on the record. Almost reminiscent of Joy Division, this is short but noisy and will appeal to New Order fans of old.
10.'Slow Jam'
New Order have often produced instrumental album tracks and this is the closest they got on 'Get Ready'. Apart from Sumner's almost spoken vocals, this sounds like a quieter moment from their 'Low Life' album. But then for the second half it goes all Britrock, with guitars straight off of Oasis' 'Definitely Maybe'.
11.'Rock The Shack'
A chaotic, Stooges-style jam with Primal Scream, this features Bobby Gillespie on vocals and sounds similar to 'Shoot Speed Kill Light' - the Scream's song from 'Exterminator' which featured Sumner on guitars. Splintering guitars combine with noisy vocals and a chorus which simply repeats the words "Rock the shack".
12.'Run Wild'
After the previous 11 collisions of guitars and electronic sounds, this is an unexpectedly mournful acoustic ballad. Probably closest to their 80s song 'Love Vigilantes' in its weepy oddness, this is clearly inspired by Sumner's family situation with the lyric "When I'm alone I think of you and how you've grown".
Verdict: Last time around, dance music had virtually taken over New Order's sound. But, once again, the Manchester band have incorporated the sounds of the moment and decided that rock is back. This is a surprisingly modern, well-produced album and a defiant answer to critics who might have said that New Order are past it.
MICHARL CHARMY @ AUSTIN CHRONICLE
A long, long time has passed since we last heard from New Order. 1993 -- wasn't that about the last time the Yankees failed to win a world championship? Well, Get Ready is as much a breath of fresh air as a Diamondbacks win, with none of the novelty. The greatest of all Eighties angst bands makes their long-overdue return with their best album since that previous decade. Perhaps throwing casual fans for a loop, Get Ready reasserts New Order as the moody, guitar-driven Joy Division offshoot they began as, until the synth-pop elements took center stage. "Crystal" opens the album with a tube-driven rush hearkening back to the Joy Division days, when the voluminous guitar layers were played by Bernard Albrecht rather than his more recognizable alias Sumner. The following "60 Miles an Hour" is the most immediate song on the album. Peter Hook wastes no time setting down the type of melodic, high-bar bassline he practically invented, and Sumner's unique vocal cadence leads a chorus as catchy as the band has ever crafted. There's only one telltale sign this is the 21st-century New Order: Billy Corgan's vocal presence on "Turn My Way." The Great Pumpkin opens the song with a hushed, flanged vocal turn before Sumner kicks in with affecting vocals as mood-setting as those on "True Faith" or "Perfect Kiss," and suddenly all is right again. The aggressive "Primitive Notion" features one of Hook's greatest basslines, and that's saying a lot. Get Ready is one of New Order's better works, and that's saying a lot. (8 of 10)
Adam Alphabet @ PLAYLOUDER
PlayLouder, young, hip, sexy as we are, last year proclaimed PRML SCRM's 'XTRMNTR', a record made by a band with the collective age of 1000 (or thereabouts), album of the year. And we were right. It was louder, sexier, nastier, and MORE than any other record released in that foul year of our Lord 2000. And now, inching ever closer to 2001, we are presented with an equally fine record - and one made by men even more ancient.
What the fuck is going on?
New Order don't even have to be this good. They should have been gone years ago - Joy Division found themselves without a singer on the eve of a breakthrough American tour, the Hacienda ate everybody's money and died, their last album, 1993's 'Republic' wasn't particularly well received, their manager died...
But here they are, minus keyboardist, but fucking good again... And minutes into the album, as the chorus-less and huge 'Crystal' works its magic, you know this. The sound is immaculate, and lyrically, here, and everywhere else on the album, Bernard Sumner is heartbreakingly teenaged.
"I don't know what to say/you don't care anyway"
And check the gloriously summery 'Turn My Way':
"I don't wanna be like other people are/don't wanna own a key don't wanna wash my car"
Hooky still plays bass like a guitar throughout, and the absence of keyboards means 'Get Ready' does indeed sound more like 'Closer' than 'Republic'... but like 'Closer' with a smile on its face. Like 'Closer' if it had got laid. We even get a beefed up MC5 styled amp blower in the shape of 'Rock The Shack', which fuzzes along marvellously and features the ever-fantastic yelps of one Bobby Gillespie. But perhaps 'Close Range' sums up the album best... a ketamine nightmare on wheels for the main, and an explosion of gorgeosity for the chorus, which could well be an ode to the mid-nineties Sumner:
"You've got to pull yourself together man/you've got to get back on you're feet again/you've got the world in your hands"
New Order are one of the best bands in the world again. Get ready.
BILLBOARD
The first collection of new material in eight years from techno-rock pioneers New Order comes on the heels of a lauded Rhino boxed set devoted to the band's post-punk precursor, Joy Division. Then there was the summer release of the super-charged single "Crystal," the lead track here and the ideal sequel to such classic New Order hits as "Regret," "True Faith," and "Bizarre Love Triangle." With its guitar-heavy inflection and air of optimistic abandon, Get Ready follows through fully on the promise of "Crystal" (as well as all the European press that greeted the set's mid-summer release there). After "Crystal," the raver "60 Miles an Hour" appeals best, along with "Rock the Shack," which enjoys extra oomph from members of Primal Scream. Offering far less are guest vocals from ex-Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan, who drags down "Turn My Way." As a whole, though, Get Ready shows vocalist/guitarist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook, and drummer Stephen Morris maturing with their energy (mental and physical) intact, and that's more than many of their peers can say.
ANDY BATTAGLIA / THE ONION AV CLUB
More than any other band born in the '80s, New Order has remained immune to the dulling effects of nostalgia. Though it grew out of a time-specific union of post-punk, new wave, and electro, the group's signature sound has reasserted and reinvented its influence over the years, as countless rock and dance acts borrowed ingredients from its elemental recipe. New Order's contextual slipperiness makes Get Ready both a regressive return to form and a progressive triumph. Taking cues from the band's earliest post-Joy Division work, Get Ready bursts with the manic energy largely absent from 1993's middling Republic, as well as bandleader Bernard Sumner's last lumbering record with Electronic. The album-opening "Crystal" rushes with driving force, pairing Sumner's oxidized guitar textures with frantic electro sizzle and the kind of four-note bass line that begs for movie-montage treatment. Elsewhere, "60 Miles An Hour" keeps the pace with a patented New Order high-neck bass hook and a gorgeous synth interlude that should sound more dated than it does. Most of Get Ready gushes with huge melodies and luscious production that gives the group's tight structures room to breathe while tastefully tipping its cap to trance. The slower tracks, including the Billy Corgan-sung "Turn My Way," the ambient-jungle-indebted "Someone Like You," and the embarrassing love song "Run Wild" achieve mixed results. But the only outright failure is "Rock The Shack," a misguided collaboration with Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie, whose preening Stones-like bluster has never sounded more out of place. Not without occasionally indifferent low points, Get Ready still boasts enough Substance-grade singles to readjust New Order's currency for inflation.
JOE TANGARI / PITCHFORK
It's been a long time since we've heard from New Order, hasn't it? A full eight years have elapsed since Republic dropped in 1993, and, listening back, the band's six albums hold up pretty well to modern ears. The band's members haven't exactly been slacking off, either, all remaining visible in the interim with various projects, including Electronic, the Other Two, and Monaco. Get Ready, the band's seventh album, finds them as able as ever, playing as though they'd never been gone, and offering their most organic album in ages.
More so than on Republic, Get Ready's ten songs emphasize the songwriterly aspects of the band's sound-- the ones that made theirs some of the most transcendent dance music of the last two decades. The surprising thing about much of this album, though, is how much it rocks. Bernard Sumner's guitar is prominent and gritty, thrashing through songs like "Crystal" (the opening track and first single) with a driving, almost garage-y tone. Drummer/programmer Stephen Morris sticks to the traps more often than usual, always complementing his programmed beats with live playing.
"Crystal" is a fantastic song, possibly one of New Order's best singles. Unfortunately, between an extended intro and repetitive, over-long outro, the album version loses some of the punch that the single edit offers. Nonetheless, it's hard to deny Peter Hook's amazing bass leads and the song's hook-laden chorus. New Order keep the tempo high for most of the album, and strike gold more often than not, especially on the excellent "Primitive Notion." Gillian Gilbert's textured synth patches wash over the song in waves, while Morris' drumming and programming propel it with busy, frantic rhythms. Sumner's voice, which is sounding decidedly less strained these days, ably carries a deft melody, while his guitar playing subtly fills in the rhythmic gaps left by Hook's melodic basslines.
The aptly titled "Slow Jam" follows, pulling back the reigns a little and leaving the programmed beats at home for a full-on anthem, replete with multi-tracked vocals and a slow, soaring melody. The band's new focus on songwriting occasionally reveals their limitations in unflattering ways, though, such as the cringe-worthy opening lyrics of "Rock the Shack," which features backing vocals from Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie and Andrew Innes. "I've been accused of everything/ From Timbuktu to old Berlin/ I need some armor for my flesh/ I need to stop and take a rest," sings Sumner over a torrent of dirty guitar reminiscent of the most straight-forward moments on Primal Scream's Exterminator. Gillespie's backing vocals actually detract somewhat from the song, which is otherwise an energizing rave-up.
Surprisingly better is the cameo from ex-Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan on "Turn My Way." He turns in backing vocals near the end of the song, though it's easy to miss unless you're really paying attention. Shockingly, Corgan restrains his nasal delivery to the point where he almost sounds like Sumner. With the possible exception of Innes, though, the most well-utilized guest is vocalist Dawn Zee, whose backing parts on "Crystal" and the ultra-danceable "Someone Like You" offer needed color to the sound. "Someone Like You," with its wordless vocal hooks and relentless beat, makes a good candidate for a second single, capable of moving even the most sedentary posteriors.
The album closes with the string-laden ballad "Run Wild," a surprisingly tender and straight-forward acoustic love song graced by a simple harmonica part and lyrics that display an honest devotion to a lover. Gilbert's keyboard mixes brilliantly with the string arrangement for a stirring bridge that leads into the uncharacteristically joyful refrain of "good times around the corner," which hints at an optimism for the future that has rarely surfaced in New Order's songs. Sumner caps it off with the simple sentiment, "I'm gonna live 'til I die/ I'm gonna live to get high."
All told, Get Ready is a pretty solid effort from a veteran band that really has nothing left to prove. They've managed to bring together a consistently rewarding set of songs and added yet another great album to their already impressive canon. Unfortunately, the songwriting at times reveals scattered holes, and the songs can draw on for too long. But if nothing else, Get Ready proves that New Order are still capable of putting out an enjoyable album. Let's just hope they don't stay away for eight more years before they give us the next one. (7.6 of 10)
CHRIS KING @ DOTMUSIC.COM
Eight years on from their last outing, the slightly disappointing 'Republic', New Order return with 'Get Ready', their seventh studio album. The sessions for 'Republic' were so notoriously fractious and fraught, that it was widely assumed there'd be no more Fine Times. So, for devoted disciples, their comeback is feverishly anticipated, though, in view of the underwhelming impression of early reviews, with some trepidation.
Within hip circles, Joy Division's enigmatic canon is revered as sacrosanct, whereas New Order tend to be underrated; pooh-poohed as the indie Pet Shop Boys. This is grossly unjust. New Order are undoubtedly one of the most influential bands of the last 20 years. Phoenixing from the ashes of Joy Division, the new band concocted an exhilarating synthesis of Kraftwerk's gliding synth travelogues, cascading bass lines, stuttering Chic chops, Giorgio Moroder's computer disco, N. Y. electro, and Velvets guitar. It's almost impossible now to convey how futuristic the seminal 'Blue Monday' sounded back in March 1983. Yes, 1983! Six years later, they surfed the 'second summer of love' zeitgeist with the dance pop masterpiece 'Technique', partly recorded on Ibiza.
This time out, Steve Osbourne, part of the Perfecto production team, replaces Stephen Hague behind the desk and helps hone a predominantly heads down, full-on axe attack. Thankfully, unlike on 'Republic', Hooky's trademark lead bass lines are prominent throughout; Pete even chucks in a cheeky crib from Joy Division's 'Twenty Four Hours' for the intro to the moody 'n' broody 'Primitive Notion'. Consequently, the overall vibe is the ragged glory of 'Sunrise' (from 'Low Life') rather than the shimmering synth pop of 'True Faith'.
This potent renaissance is immediately evident with opener and current Top 10 smash 'Crystal'. A sleekly propulsive adrenaline rush, it's the soundtrack to hurtling, blitzed to the gills, through neon strafed European cities at midnight. Barney is in typical lyrical form, at once naively evocative and mind-bogglingly naff, "Here comes love, it's like honey, you can't buy it with money". Good grief. Nevertheless, it's Sumner's halting, occasionally marmite-thin vocals that redeem such wincing lyrical howlers. For despite some vocal shortcomings, his voice is remarkably endearing, the total lack of artifice suggesting both sincerity and spontaneity.
Unfortunately, nothing can salvage the witless wordplay of the Brit-poppy 'Slow Jam', while even Bobby Gillespie and the Scream team fail to ignite the unforgivably lame Stooges boogie of 'Rock The Shack'. Somewhat surprisingly, it's left to Smashing Pumpkin, Billy Corgan, to provide the 'star turn' with the mesmerizing melancholia of 'Turn My Way'. Even better is the simply sublime 'Run Wild', featuring Barney on heart-rending mellotron, acoustic guitars, surging strings and hurrah, a candid, genuinely affecting lyric.
Touched by the hand of God? Well, it's not 'Low Life' or 'Technique' but there's at least seven welcome additions to the New Order canon and in the thrilling 'Crystal' and poignant 'Run Wild', a brace of bona fide classics. As Barney puts it, "Good times around the corner, I swear it's getting warmer". (4 of 5)
JIM CONNELLY @ NEUMU.NET
Get Ready starts off with a bit of misdirection: the opening moments of "Crystal" are filled with piano notes played over a synth-flourish and a wailing woman's voice. Then, just when you might be wondering whether New Order have finally fallen into the digital abyss, Bernard Sumner kicks in with some of his crunchiest guitar ever, serving notice that Get Ready is actually their most straight-out rock album in 20 years. True, only "60 Miles an Hour" sounds like a candidate for New Order's pantheon of hallowed singles; still, Get Ready might be the group's most consistent album from top to bottom.
Look, it's actually pretty simple: New Order forged a pioneering sound at the beginning of the '80s, smack in the middle of synth-pop dance beats and post-punk hard rock that no one had ever heard before. Everything they've done since has been variations on that sound. Get Ready is no exception: it's all about Bernard Sumner's churning guitar and plaintive vocals, Stephen Morris' precise beats, Gillian Gilbert's atmospheric synth work, and Peter Hook's upfront melodies on bass. Other bands have done this, of course, before and since, but nobody has ever straddled the line like New Order. These days the fun is in watching how they stitch it all together, as in "Primitive Notion," leading off with a bass riff that anchors the song over and over again as the other instruments drop in and out of the mix, fighting it for prominence. In the end, Hook wins, but everybody else took a helluva shot.
Even better is "Slow Jam," which is pretty much all about an endlessly repeating guitar riff that intensifies on the chorus and drops out to catch its breath for a second before the next verse. When Sumner sings, "Can't get enough of this," he's obviously talking about the guitar parts he's come up with. Not that it matters what he's singing about : New Order have always been about the grooves, the melodies, and the interplay between the instruments. So listening to the build-up at the beginning of a song like "Someone Like You" — echoing keyboards, driving drums, rumbling bass, and finally guitar and more guitar — is far more rewarding than noticing that a sample couplet goes "You're everything to me/ The sweetest symphony."
New Order get the fact that there's meaning in the pure physicality and drive of their music. Certainly when the three men were in Joy Division, the words meant more — but look where that got them. So when, at the end of Get Ready, they chant "Good times around the corner" over and over again, suddenly — inadvertently, of course — it pretty much sums up everything they're about. (7 of 10)
KEVIN RAUB @ CDNOW.COM
After years of bickering, the members of New Order have finally placed their differences aside, and return with their first new album since 1993, Get Ready. This less-slickly produced, relatively safe effort sticks to the band's original recipe, offering Peter Hook's tsunami-sized bass lines, singer Bernard Sumner's passive vocals and above-the-rim guitar licks, and the electronic wizardry of husband-wife team Gillian Gilbert (keyboards) and Stephen Morris (drums).
Highlights include the haunting "Turn My Way," featuring guest guitar and vocals by ex-Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan; "Someone Like You," which perfectly melds all the band's talents into a trippy journey through the highlights of New Order past; and first single "Crystal," which kicks the record off with a guitar-meets-eletronica battle call that conjures up images of the band's last great single, "Regret."
PATRICK SCHABE @ POP MATTERS
Critic Fredric Jameson has claimed that pastiche is the hallmark of postmodern art forms. In Jameson's use of the word, pastiche refers to a cannibalization of history to create a bricolage of allusions to past cultural forms and texts. For example, the appropriation of Transformers and Strawberry Shortcake symbols by the Hot Topic set, a generation too young to remember these landmarks when they were new. There is, however, a distinct downside to pastiche in this sense, as it indicates an inability to create new ideas. Pastiche is all that is left when originality has been exhausted.
Were Jameson interested in New Order, he'd have a field day with Get Ready, their first new album in almost a decade. From the moment that "Crystal" starts spinning in the CD player until the last refrains of "Run Wild", a sense of déjà vu surrounds the listener. The new New Order seem to be haunted by the past New Order. If you were to give it a quick and superficial listen, you'd think that New Order had simply cannibalized their own history, run it through a sampler, and called the mix-and-match results a new album. And you'd be missing the point.
Ever since the death of Ian Curtis in 1980, the former members of Joy Division have been something of a legend in music history. Although their earliest efforts seemed to follow Joy Division's trajectory into the emerging goth scene, Bernard Sumner and company quickly established themselves as a truly new order by spearheading the New Wave scene. With hits like "Blue Monday", "Bizarre Love Triangle", and "True Faith" helping establish what would eventually become the quite distinctive "'80s music" sound, New Order moved beyond their murky and tragic past to become something like post-punk gods. As a part of the modern rock scene, New Order helped popularize dance music with their blend of drum-machine beats, synthesizers and guitar/bass rock chords, becoming one of the most respected techno-pop bands of the decade. By 1990, New Order had become so well established that they were invited to record the theme song (the charmingly cheesy "World in Motion") for England's competition in the football (soccer) World Cup. However, 1993 saw New Order's most successful album, Republic, also become what looked to be their last.
After nearly 20 years together and plenty of interpersonal tension, Sumner was interested in pursuing outside projects such as his work with Electronic, the supergroup he founded with Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant and ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr. Bassist Peter Hook formed two new bands, first Revenge and later Monaco, and the husband-and-wife team of drummer Stephen Morris and keyboardist Gillian Gilbert recorded together as the Other Ones. New Order seemed to have gone out on top, one of the most notable entries of the 1980s and legends among critics, musicians and fans alike.
And then along comes Get Ready. After almost a decade-long break from working together, New Order are back. From any perspective it might seem like a move calculated simply to capitalize on the cachet of their name, as none of the members' other projects ever came close to the success of New Order. It also might seem like a risky move, given that New Wave is a nearly desiccated corpse dragged across the airwaves of retro-format radio and New Romanticism is hardly en vogue in the age of irony. Indeed, the ghost of Joy Division has proven to be more successful than the band ever was when Curtis was alive, and it probably would have been the case that New Order would have followed in Joy Division's footsteps as being a posthumous powerhouse of influence.
So it comes as something of a happy surprise that New Order's latest effort is one of the best albums of their career. Rather than try and return to the now-lightweight dance band that they embodied on Brotherhood or Technique, or try and reinvent themselves as contemporaneously hip in a scene that doesn't offer many breaks to artists in their late forties, New Order prove that sometimes a band's revival can have it both ways. On Get Ready, New Order create a new sound out of their own past. Mining the subtleties of melody and rhythm that were so pronounced throughout their career, New Order seem to have crafted themselves anew out of nostalgia and the timelessness of pop sensibility.
Yes, it is, in some sense, pastiche as Jameson would have it, but it simultaneously becomes something original. You hear it right away in "Crystal", the lead track and first single from the album. The machine-like jangle, the unmistakable signature of Peter Hook's bass lines, and the tinny, hollow twang of guitars that sounds like early New Order or even... Joy Division? Yup. The most obvious flash of the past on Get Ready is the hint of Joy Division that lingers around many of the tracks, but most obviously the low dirge of the bass line in "Turn My Way" and the opening of "Primitive Notion". It shouldn't be too surprising really, considering that even on the Joy Division classic "Love Will Tear Us Apart" you can hear the beginnings of the movement towards what would eventually become New Order. But rather than sound like one particular period of their past on a song-by-song basis, each song incorporates bits and pieces of their history into new compositions. Dance elements fill songs like "Vicious Streak" and "Someone Like You", but are undercut by Hook's solo bass lines and Sumner's twangy guitar. On "Close Range", the band goes back to the full, shimmering sound that made "Regret" a big single, but updated to include more of the sounds of contemporary electronica.
Get Ready also throws some new elements at the listener, keeping the album from sounding like a New Order mix album. "Slow Jam" and "Rock the Shack" would have been some of the rockiest songs New Order had done in years a decade ago, and now they seem almost pleasantly out of character. Any band from the "Madchester" scene who didn't acknowledge an influence from fellow Mancunians New Order was deluding itself. So when New Order crank it up a notch and throw back to the dance/rock/psychedelic blend of late '80s/early '90s British rock, it doesn't seem all that strange. To pull it off they recruited Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream (who are actually from Glasgow, but whose Screamadelica was contemporaneous with the scene and remains a classic from the era) to join Sumner in a solid guitar groove on "Rock the Shack".
"Turn My Way" also features ex-Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan in a guitar/vocal accompaniment with Sumner that produces a strangely harmonious result. Corgan has joined New Order as a touring member for the Get Ready tour, replacing Gillian Gilbert on stage while she takes some maternity leave, and it will be interesting to see if Corgan will continue to work with New Order since the results are surprisingly good. Yet, perhaps the most peculiar gem on the album comes in "Run Wild". While New Order are no strangers to sentimental ballads, the simple indie pop sound of acoustic guitar, plaintive harmonica, and orchestra strings is fairly new territory.
"Run Wild" also shows the difference in Sumner's lyrics in 2001 versus 1981. An unabashedly un-ironic song, it trips through some almost embarrassingly corny love song lyrics and fades out to a chorus of "Good times around the corner". This is hardly the dark, mopey band of "Ceremony" and "Blue Monday". Over the course of New Order's career you can see the lyrical content progressing from the depressing to the fey, but what makes "Run Wild" seem so genuine is that it is the closing remark on an album that plays in the sounds of New Order past. Twice on the album Sumner alludes to "wanting it to be like it was at the start", and it seems like the band has done what it could to return to its roots as a chance to start over, using established sounds but a fresh perspective.
But it's "Crystal" that sums up the whole experience of Get Ready in one song. Incorporating familiar dance elements, drum-machine electronica, Hook's rich bass, and a jagged guitar line, it's all of New Order rolled into one bright moment. Twenty years of history condensed into one track, it prepares the listener for the backwards journey through New Order's past and around into a future where all previous elements are at their disposal that is Get Ready. In the course of this journey, not only do they prove that they can still be relevant and create a great album, but that their ransacking of their history is not the emptiness of Jameson's pastiche. Rather, New Order rise from the ashes of their own history like a phoenix, something the same yet different, a youth born from the remnants of old age.
TRACK LIST
01. Crystal
02. 60 miles an hour
03. Turn My Way
04. Vicious Streak
05. Primitive Notion
06. Slow Jam
07. Rock the Shack
08. Someone Like You
09. Close Range
10. Run Wild
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