I came accross this page some time ago, quite interesting. There's now a review of WTFSC. It has reviews of NO's past album's also and you can leave a comment about each review.
http://www.adriandenning.co.uk/neworder.html#wftsc
Waiting For The Sirens Call - 7/10 (2005)
Who's Joe / Hey Now What You Doing? / Waiting For The Sirens Call / Krafty / I Told You So / Morning Night And Day / Dracula's Castle / Jetstream / Guilt Is A Useless Emotion / Turn / Working Overtime
In the sixteen years since 'Technique', New Order have released a grand total of three albums, including this one. It's an awfully long time-span in which the various band-members side-projects have often taken up more time than the main attration. Every new release these days is greeted as a come-back, as some kind of special event. New Order have always managed to sound contemporary through the years, often they've sounded innovative and groundbreaking. With this latest release, it could be said that the groups best days are certainly behind them. 'Waiting For The Sirens Call' contains familiar New Order elements. The keyboards, the drums, the dance/rock crossover, the techno and disco and the way with a pop hook that's always served them well. Lead single 'Krafty' is a delight to listen to, summery guitar-led pop that sounds fresh and classy. In a similar vein is second song here and potential single to my ears, 'Hey Now What You Doing?'. They do a great New Order mid-section complete with hooky solo that's a delight. It's a moment. The closing guitar thumper 'Working Overtime', jerky in its guitar rhythms almost reminds me of dour-mancuians, The Fall. Well, it's something in the water, we're told... 'Dracula's Castle' is possibly my favourite track here, fairly like a track from 'Technique', albeit one remixed for the 21st century. It works for me, anyway. Other songs here do their job, but a song such as the title track, as nice as it is, just sounds a little too familiar. Like a New Order by numbers that somebody has assembled with pro-tools, bits of past New Order and lyrics from a holiday catalogue.
Actually, despite a good handful of classy and fine New Order moments as detailed above, 'Waiting For The Sirens Call' fails to contain a single new element, a single essential New Order moment and whilst it also fails to contain a single genuinely bad track - eventually just washes over you. If you removed the bass-guitar of Peter Hook and although he just does his trademark thing, too many of these songs would end up sounding dangerously plain and smooth. I do enjoy the six minute long dance track 'I Told You So', even though it fails to move me on an emotional level. The kind of sheer europhia that a song like 'Crystal' provided a listener with last time New Order surfaced is lacking from even the finest moments contained on 'Waiting For The Sirens Call'. It's a strange thing and not easy for me to put my finger on. All the correct elements are present musically, the lyrics are nothing to write home about, but certainly not cringe-worthy or anything. Perhaps it's just the lack of surprising elements this album presents us with, the lack of anything to make me go 'wow'. This isn't really a 'wow' album. It makes me smile in places, it's certainly easy to listen to and deserves to spawn two or three hit singles for the group. 'Waiting For The Sirens Call'? It's alright, it's nice.
You should check out some of the other reviews on there also, quite interesting
