A collection of reviews from the late 70's early 80's which may already exist on this very wonderful site.
I'd look away for the Chris Burkham review of 'Temptation' in Sounds. Q. Was this the cock Hooky once threatened to deck during an interview circa '83? Answers on a postcard to . . .
Melody Maker 20/1/79 A Factory Sample EP
Intelligent, attractive, surprisingly homogenous sampler from Factory Records. A double EP, one side per group: an arrangement infinitely preferable to the impossible mish-mash that passes for the usual "sampler" (album), and an object example of what the small label can offer by way of the quick discovery and sympathetic nurturing of local talent (in this case Manchester and Sheffield). If there is a good general mood, it's of careful, idiosyncratic experimentation. Joy Division wind their claustrophobic, abrasive yet precise anger even tighter, a quality only hinted at in their previous "Idea For Living" EP: both "Digital" and "Glass" are strong, massive and, as throughout the EP, make you want to hear more (the acid test of a sampler!).
- Jon Savage
Melody Maker 20/10/79 Earcom 2 - Contradiction
Number 2 in Bob Last's turntable magazine is a vast improvement on the first, wildly erratic foray. Everything is much more sophisticated and compact this time around. There are far fewer "contributors" (Thursdays, Basczax and Joy Division to be precise) and these are far more rigorously disciplined and - dare I say? - talented. They also
and I assume it's part of the point of Earcom - reflect a specific approach which is very much of the moment. This is most easily summarised by Joy Division, simply because they're the best known of the trio: melody has returned and it's fed through a bass-propelled, slightly nightmarish sparseness together with words that veer either towards heavy introspection (e.g. "From safety to where?") or Tomorrow's World ("Karleean Photography"). Psychedelia is just around the corner. If I were an A&R person, I'd get up to Cleveland and start checking out Basczax.
Ian Birch
Sounds 17/11/79 Transmission
Bleak industrial landscapes and barren countryside can all go hang itself, this is a song that, in it's own way, is as memorable as Magazine's 'Shot By Both Sides', leaning as it does on a similarly memorable guitar riff. Not the kind of thing you'd particularly want to hear over breakfast - unless you wanted to force yourself back to bed fpr the day - but a strong, idiosyncratic single.
- Pete Silverton
Melody Maker 5/4/80 Licht Und Blindheit
Ambitiously placing Joy Division in a Romantic Gothic context, the French label has put together limited edition package, complete with a mystic mountain picture folder and extensive notes, by one Jean Pierre Turmel, full of references to poetic predecessors like the German Kleist. Despite the florid language, he perhaps comes closest to summing up their appeal, putting their music "at the intersection of luminous and dark worlds, betwen silence and the cry." It's an apt description for the excellent "Atmospohere", a song sustained by a disquieting synthesizer landscape, undermined by deep, gloomy tom-tom drumming and topped by a fine Ian Curtis vocal. "Dead Souls" achieves a certain intensity which is dissipated a bit by cloudier instrumentation. Nevertheless, a package well worth searching out.
- Chris Bohn
Melody Maker 28/6/80 Love Will Tear Us Apart
This single, a follow-up to the free flexi which some baddies in record shops have been selling, has been invested with sad significance after singer Ian Curtis' tragic suicide. Joy Divison were, and may still remain, an innovative and courageous band. Divorced from emotions such as sympathy, this record offers a taster for their forthcoming album 'Closer'. Evocative, interesting... a powerfully original piece of 80's music.
- Martyn Sutton
Sounds 18/10/80 Atmosphere/She's Lost Control
Austere, very beautiful, the mood moves me... Walker Brothers nuffink, smart-ass. What 'Closer' failed to achieve given 24 inches and most of 40 minutes, this double headed single makes up for in a quarter of the time; 'Atmosphere' is the most rewarding piece of work Joy Division recorded, firm, complete and entirely durable, unlike too much else the J.D. moniker is linked with. But then, you already know all that, don't you?
- Mick Wall
Sounds 7/3/81 Ceremony
Controlled melancholy! While faraway loonies debate whether their name identifies with forces of oppression, let me just tell ya: This is the second group ever to make a record as 'New Order', and the better of the two. I(an Curtis was a TG fan who took it all too far. Sad, but despite intriguing moments his voice was pure Jim Morrison without the range, rather like the 'Phantom's Divine Comedy' LP of yore which posed as risen-from-the-swamp Jimbo antics. But whether the glorification is justified or not, it sure makes New Order's life tough. I liked the post-Morrison Doors records, but their mistake was to shy away from the old matrix. Happily, this brazenly, confidently continues the Joy Division approach. 'Written by...' A rose by any other name. I'll leave verbose analysis to those who are worst at it...
- Sandy Robertson
Melody Maker 30/1/82 Everything's Gone Green
Just when you thought it was safe to crawl out of the factory... Available for the first time in 12 inch form, one of '81's classics, together with two previously unreleased tracks. If New Order have sounded at times like a shadowy reflection of Joy Division's seven rooms of gloom - too much black, Jack - "Everything's Gone Green" pointed to a way out of the square. New Order have found the interface between dance-oriented extroversion and emotional introversion, and they go for it with a vengeance. On the other side, "Mesh" hits the electric grid with a rushing wind of synthosound; "Cries..." is what The Sound want to sound like but don't.
- Lynden Barber
Sounds 15/5/82 Temptaion
The strongest post-punk bands are rapidly becoming the new hippies, and
New Order are leading the pack. They wrap themselves up in so much
petty enigma that they sicken me, because they are not doing it for any
reason. It is just their sense of the 'artistic' that makes them
package their product in barely comprehensible artiness, even though
this (so called) art is second hand, second rate Grammar School
fascination.
'Temptation' shows New Order stepping back into the Joy Division
shadow, a pointless direction to follow. For if JD did actually achieve
anything - which is doubtful - then New Order should try to follow that
up. But they don't! They still cocoon themselves with IDEALS! ETHICS!
STRUCTURALISM! RUBBISH!
New Order are just the same as ABC, except they are aiming for a
different market. New Order are for students, for people who think they
are being 'different' and 'rebellious' before they settle down into
their jobs as stockbrokers, or lawyers, or members of Echo And The
Bunnymen.
- Chris Burkham
Melody Maker 15/5/82 Temptation
BRITAIN SAYS NO TO PEACE PLAN
Meanwhile, the office continues to monitor the input of vinyl which is now creeping dangerously towards the ceiling. For instance, there is the excellent new single from NEW ORDER called "Temptation" (Factory). This of course is available in seven and 12 inch formats. Spartan, but moving fast enough to leave a trail of dust visible from miles away, airy but cunningly melodic, this is a subtle and continuously maturing brew. Everything is allotted its place, including vrooming bass and wiry guitar which turns into a nasty little weapon when required, plus mechanised synth, a huge drum sound and the best New Order vocalising to date. Blimey, it's a classic. Majestic. Uplifting. Powerful, graceful, burbleburbleburble... Oh, and don't forget to flip it, because overleaf there is the almost equally brill "Hurt". This is less concerned than "Temptation" with gradually cranking the pressure to boiling point, but features spectacularly thunderous drumming and another insistent rhythm which should soon be all over the nation like a plague. New Order, I salute you! (Sorry about the album review, but compared to this it just wasn't there, was it?)
- Adam Sweeting
Sounds 27/8/83 Confusion
The long-awaited Artur Baker mix and, in spite of the trendiness of just about every aspect here, one has to admit it has a certain muscle-popping charm. Towards the end it begins to drag, but that may be a consequence of the office stereo as opposed to the location I originally tracked it in, namely K. Cummins's graphic-EQ'd jalopy...
- Sandy Robertson
Sounds 21/4/84 Thieves Like Us
No Robert Altman here, mate. Double B-side joke, but I'm not laffin'... Factory-graphics actually devalue beauty, by making it commonplace; no mean feat. Or should that read very mean? 12 inch of synthetic warble with no focus, courtesy of Arthur Baker. As Mr Baker just said, he can't redefine music every week... and this proves it. Ah, well - maybe next week?
- Sandy Robertson
Sounds 9/6/84 Murder
An Ideal For Living reckons this song was recorded in the October '82 sessions leading up to 'Power, Corruption And Lies'. It was obviously cut on a night of extreme agitation, at least that's the eerie ambience which leaks through the grooves. A pall of black smoke drum signals, shroud guitar and paranoid bass, the sole lyric seems to be "I hate you" raged and severely distorted by studio trickery. For some reason it makes me think of Peter Sutcliffe. In contrast to the electro-pop of 'Blue Monday' and 'Confusion', 'Murder' is the zombie of Joy Division on the prowl with an axe in it's hands looking for victims. Chech Arthur Baker's flip mix of 'Thieves Like Us' to context it's oddity in New Order's song-book. A record which squeezes your heart between an icy fist.
- Jack Barron
Melody Maker 9/9/89 Run 2
SINGLE OF THE WEEK
What we like about New Order is that they do exactly as they please. Rather like The Cure, they appear to work only when they know it's not going to feel like work - they turn laziness into a virtue. Consequently, also like The Cure, though we've not liked everything they've done, they've yet to do anything that could fairly be described as bad. "Run 2", a reworking of the "Run" that appeared on "Technique", could almost have been recorded around the time of "Power, Corruption And Lies" in that Hook's bass dominates the sound, the guitar's sharper but understated and Bernie's vocal a far more solitary affair. The beat, though, is firmly, ferociously up-to-date, like a distant crackle of machine-guns haunted by a disembodied voice. Even so, things are so self-consciously muted, so minimal, it's like "Run" could be the remix of "Run 2". "MTO", the B-side, is another typically and impeccably arranged dance dope-beat. Vocal-less, it's evidently aimed at the clubs and, though it never even hints at the dizzy, blissed-out euphoria of "True Faith", it hangs on a thread of melody so simple and memorable you'll probably be dancing to it for the rest of the year. Truly wonderful.
- The Stud Brothers
