I’ll admit this much right off the bat: I hadn’t heard of New Order until about a week ago. This is either an egregious display of musical ignorance or an acceptable result of trying to forget about the 80’s, but there, I said it. Before I answer the question everyone is dying to know – is it good? – I must first ask something much more important: What do we expect from music these days? Are we looking for something that will move us profoundly, or simply move us physically? It’s clear right now that anyone with access and enough motivation and maybe a little luck can release an EP or at least a mix tape and for a short while stop and make us listen. This development gives us a better chance to either hear something great or hear something awful, so I ask again: What is our goal when listening to music?
Now, New Order is not an example of any old Joe buying his way into a record studio and playing the shit that he’s spent the last 6 years practicing in his basement. They are old hats in the music industry. But they’re a good subject to use to get to the bottom of this research question of mine. Their new album, Lost Sirens, sounds great. I like that it relies less on the synth-pop sound of the 80’s and more on the driving guitars of the 70’s and the nowadays. I thoroughly enjoyed this past week of listening to it with a critical ear. But what happens to this album next week, or the week after? Am I going to listen to it again, or was this just an enjoyable little fling that ultimately has no chance of working out? If the latter turns out to be true, can I call Lost Sirens a good album? This is the crux of my question.
The obvious answer is no. If I listen to it for a few days and never want to listen to it ever again, clearly it is not a significant album. But my objective here is to distinguish significant from pleasurable. There were (sadly) only 8 songs, and I generally liked most of them. The album really got my dance blood flowing, and my dance blood does not flow easily. This is not an album to listen to sitting down. However, it is not an album to listen to in a club. It exists in a kind of in-between state, and I worry that this in-between-ness may reduce this album to a very small blip in the chronology of my music listening-to life.
New Order is a band made up of some old Joy Division dudes, and Lost Sirens is basically a collection of songs that were recorded almost a decade ago but were never released because the band broke up. So it’s a minor miracle that I’m even talking about Lost Sirens at all. But here I am, talking about it, so I’ll proclaim the following with total confidence: this is the best album I’ve heard this year. Granted, I haven’t had a chance to listen to the new A$AP Rocky and the only other album I’ve listened to start-to-finish is the utterly disappointing Vessel by Twenty One Pilots. But there’s some really good stuff happening on Lost Sirens. The 5th track, “Hellbent,” is a party, replete with striking guitar and keyboard fills between verses. The 7th track, “I’ve Got a Feeling,” would be the highlight of an 80’s-themed party for me. And everything seems to be built up for the last song, “I Told You So,” which is not just the obvious song of the album in my opinion but an overall impressive sonic achievement. I love a good guitar drone, and this song has it throughout, all the way through the end when we are blessed with a beautifully psychedelic crescendo that I never saw coming.
I’m not drooling over this album, however, because the first half of it isn’t spectacular and when it comes down to it, an 8-song album just doesn’t cut it for me. I’d like some more. But here’s the answer to my original question: what I expect when listening to an album is to be stimulated for an hour and want to repeat the experience at some point in the near future. That’s all. Lost Sirens had me stimulated for 40 minutes and not necessarily eager to listen to it again immediately, but certainly open to the idea of adding a few songs off it to my iPod. Is there a level above lukewarm? If so, that’s Lost Sirens.
Grade: B
I would give it 3.5/ 5. It is a good album but it could have been better if they didn’t break up. Sugarcane, I’ll stay with you and Hellbent sound very good. I like Hellbent from the total version better than the original mix. If you like good uplifting music with great melodies and catchy songs then you will love this album, if you are a casual or a diehard New Order fan then you will like this album also.
New order, what a Great band, what a Great life.