I Saw The Telegram....

 

I've tried more often than not since starting the blog back in October 2010 to try and mostly post on bands that in my humble opinion should have been more successful than they were and to try and either introduce music fans to these bands or as a memory nudge to others who would know who these bands were but may have forgotten about them to a certain extent. It's debatable as to how this has panned out but if there are a few people out there who fall into one of those categories then hopefully it is serving a purpose.

Enough rambling for one day I think and onto today's post which completely flies in the face of the previous paragraph and is a small piece on a band that have achieved huge success over the last 30 years or so and would easily make it onto a shortlist of my favourite bands.

The first album that I bought by the mighty New Order is still my favourite album by them, Lowlife. As much as I like Movement and Power,Corruption And Lies this is the one, for me, in which they fully hit their stride and any album that starts with their very own modern day folk song replete with melodica solo, Love Vigilantes is staring at greatness from the off. Just when you think things can't get any better they follow that up with the lush, epic that is The Perfect Kiss which although a fantastic song you have to hear it in all it's 9 minute 12" version to hear the full glory of it.

This Time Of night is not a track that gets mentioned a lot but it contains one of those killer New Order choruses and one of Barney's finest lyrics, that he probably bashed off in 5 minutes in the studio.

Things then turn up a notch for the adrenaline rush that is Sunrise. This is always a highlight of the New Order live experience. This is then followed by the very beautiful and moving instrumental, Elegia.

Sooner Than You Think is a fairly decent New Order track but is not up to the standard of the rest of the album. The album closes with another single Sub-Culture, albeit in a slightly more restrained but superior version and then Face Up, which a lot of fans didn't take to but personally I think it's a great track to close my favourite New Order album and is another popular choice when played live, especially that moment when you have 2000+ fans singing "Oh, how I cannot bear the thought of you". at full volume. Glorious.