I am SO down with the Brotherhood

I think Brotherhood is one of New Order's best albums. I love every song on there- with the exception of As it was when it was. Broken Promise recalls Joy Division, Way of Life is stoner music, and I cannot understand why New Order fans aren't into ANGEL DUST which is one of their best songs of all time. All Day Long also has this old school hiphop vibe which I just fucking love. Paradise sounds dated, but is still a great song, and I really love Wierdo also. I also prefer the album version of BLT over the remix on Substance. Bottom line is that this album is incredible and i'd say is tied with Low Life and Get Ready as their best work.....By the way, I really love the song ICB on Movement....been listening to it nonstop the past 2 weeks.....one of the lyrics Bernard sings is "I was my hands with ........" and I cannot make out what he says. It sounds like "pestilence" or "medicine" or "innocence" or "resonance"....Does anyone know. And check out my site:

www.myspace.com/misterbaron if you want to know a little more about me.

Thanks

J

Interesting take... A lot of NO fans would rate Brotherhood (along with Republic) as their least favourite album... It's grown on me recently, largely thanks to relistening to individual tracks in order to vote in the NO Cup... I think I underrated ADL, ELC and WOL for a long time, and so maybe didn't have as much time for the album as a whole as I should have... Always loved BLT, Weirdo and AIIWIW... As for ICB, my imediate reaction to the lyric question was 'innocence' and the lyrics on here seem to agree: Ian Curtis Buried

Snorri xxx

For a start I think its poorly produced. It seems like they rushed it in following up Low Life.

Its decent, but most of the songs (BLT excluded) wouldnt get in my top 10 or even top 20.

I wish they'd done a better job commiting As It Is to record though.

Wasim wrote: For a start I think its poorly produced. It seems like they rushed it in following up Low Life.

Its decent, but most of the songs (BLT excluded) wouldnt get in my top 10 or even top 20.

I wish they'd done a better job commiting As It Is to record though.

For ages it was the only NO album I owned on CD, he rest being on cassette - so I probably never noticed the poor production... It still doesn't have the sparkle that other NO albums have...

Snorri xxx

Good record...I probably listen to it more than Low-Life.

A huge let down to me, this album was. I'd heard most of the tracks developing live in the previous year or so, and none of them had the impact that the Low Life tracks did. All the same, I wasn't expecting a production as poor as this got. Only BLT and Angel Dust really lived up to what they had sounded like live. As It Is was the biggest disappointment, it had been good live, and fuck knows what they were trying to do with Broken Promise, they turned a live rocker into something tinny and weedy. As Wasim said above, it seems rushed, to me they didn't have the quality of songs to put out a whole album. Nobody will ever explain to me why Every Little Counts exists, a blot on the landscape.

IMO, Brotherhood is better than Republic. I agree that it is not their best album, but it's pretty decent.

how can you even think about dissing the second half of Every Little Counts (after that break)????

that is pure genius, and especially back in 1986.... I remember actually tearing up as the lp drew to a close with those keyboard washes overwhelming my 18 year old self....

and then just as I was being blown away by the mad orchestration of that last few minutes, I think my turntable has exploded....

I think a lot of older New Order material gets dated cause so many other bands come along later and are influenced by them and recycle some of those concepts, and you forget how brilliant the songs were when they were first released.....

Brotherhood is a record like that to me. It may sound poorly produced in 2006, but in 1986 it was pretty mad stuff....

Especially in comparison to what all the other indie bands were (not) doing at the time...

Tarbox23 wrote: how can you even think about dissing the second half of Every Little Counts (after that break)????

that is pure genius, and especially back in 1986.... I remember actually tearing up as the lp drew to a close with those keyboard washes overwhelming my 18 year old self....

and then just as I was being blown away by the mad orchestration of that last few minutes, I think my turntable has exploded....

I think a lot of older New Order material gets dated cause so many other bands come along later and are influenced by them and recycle some of those concepts, and you forget how brilliant the songs were when they were first released.....

Brotherhood is a record like that to me. It may sound poorly produced in 2006, but in 1986 it was pretty mad stuff....

Especially in comparison to what all the other indie bands were (not) doing at the time...

You have a point, Tarbox. I have to agree.

Very well said Tarbox23.....Every Little Counts is pure genius.....When was the last time you could remember a song to be so ridiculous and yet so moving all at the same time?

And I would agree that Republic is New Order's worst album, although I would say half the album is pretty solid....

J

Tarbox23 wrote: how can you even think about dissing the second half of Every Little Counts (after that break)????

that is pure genius, and especially back in 1986.... I remember actually tearing up as the lp drew to a close with those keyboard washes overwhelming my 18 year old self....

and then just as I was being blown away by the mad orchestration of that last few minutes, I think my turntable has exploded....

I think a lot of older New Order material gets dated cause so many other bands come along later and are influenced by them and recycle some of those concepts, and you forget how brilliant the songs were when they were first released.....

Brotherhood is a record like that to me. It may sound poorly produced in 2006, but in 1986 it was pretty mad stuff....

Especially in comparison to what all the other indie bands were (not) doing at the time...

Except I thought this in 1986.....it was a huge disappointment putting that record on the turntable, having heard the power that the songs had live, and hearing them watered down and blanded out.

I think the production on the sequencer side is very good, atmospheric and appropriate for the songs. I do prefer listening to BLT live circa 1986/87 to the album version, but the rest of the tracks on that side sound great to me productionwise. And otherwise as well!

However, on the guitar side they blew it up quite obviously.

It's one of my least favourite albums by New Order, I just don't have the urge to play it at all right now.

brotherhood is probally may fave new order album,some of the songs stand head and shoulders above anything thats been done since. all day long,as it is,weirdo,any of them 3 ,any other band would beg to have em in their back cataluoge. as for new order turning tunes that kick ass live into mediocre tracks ,it wouldnt be the first time would it? ysf? what a stormer when it was in development being played live and nothing like what we ended up with. same goes for icb,in fact the whole of movement,face up,sooner than you think. i could go on. that said they still good even on a bad day

I think a lot of fans that followed NO in their heyday have the privilege of knowing the birth and growth of their tracks, since the band debuted new songs and experimented with structure during many of their live shows. As I was born the year LowLife came out, my perspective is a lot different. To me, Brotherhood sounds better than LowLife; the only tracks on LowLife that bristle with a lot of energy are "Love Vigilantes", "Sunrise", and "Face Up". (This is not to say I don't like the other songs-it's a production issue.) On Brotherhood, Paradise is a decent opener, but weak in comparison to "Dreams Never End", "Age of Consent", and "Love Vigilantes". However, from thereon the record is quite lively, and the guitar work is strong. Not as good as Technique, but as I said in an earlier post, Bernard beat Lou Reed in his own field of style and feel. Are there weak points in Brotherhood in terms of production? Yes. Remember that big article on New Order in Q or Mojo or something back in 2000, or earlier? They ran down the album catalogue and either Hooky or Bernard says they thought Brotherhood was a bit weak. Then they ask what songs were on it. The interviewer tells them, and and they say something like, "Oh, that's sounds pretty good actually."

Brotherhood is sort of ignored because BLT overshadows the whole thing, and a lot of people know BLT from Substance or other compilations. The album is bookended chronologically by bigger achievements (Perfect Kiss, True Faith/1963) and a bit contemporaneous with subpar singles (STOTN, Shellshock), so maybe that has something as well to do with it being rememebered unfavorably.

New Order's songs (or albums) have so much to do with context...

Like LV says, I was one of the privileged who saw them in their heyday when they were developing their songs live...

and while they were doing that I was having a fantastic love affair...

And that broke up just as Republic came out...so the songs on that album have a real resonance

Spooky (we had cat called Spooky, see what I mean), Special, Times Change, they are so memorable to me.

And by the time Get Ready came out I was in another spectacular relationship...I was happy to hear the songs and remember those times but it didn't matter quite so much as "Republic" did...

JV wrote:

Brotherhood is sort of ignored because BLT overshadows the whole thing, and a lot of people know BLT from Substance or other compilations. The album is bookended chronologically by bigger achievements (Perfect Kiss, True Faith/1963) and a bit contemporaneous with subpar singles (STOTN, Shellshock), so maybe that has something as well to do with it being rememebered unfavorably.

After the highs of Low-Life I was very disappointed when I first played Brotherhood, in fact my initial reaction was this is the beginning of the end for NO, another 2 years perhaps, the single releases (apart from BLT) were weak, but now it is one of my most played NO albums. Time is a great healer

ELC after that break is pure heaven. I WISH the first half had better lyrics so the whole song was amazing but I'll settle. There isn't a word for the feeling of that last half. Sublime doesn't do it justic. But you're washed away and so in awe that you forget to hit stop before SOTN comes on and the moment is very nearly ruined.

Wasim wrote: For a start I think its poorly produced. It seems like they rushed it in following up Low Life.

Its decent, but most of the songs (BLT excluded) wouldnt get in my top 10 or even top 20.

I wish they'd done a better job commiting As It Is to record though.

I'm absolutely with you on that.