That, as the UK tour is roughly from the third week of October onwards, it will be promoting the new album? One would think if that was the case then the album would be released in early September as touring to support an album which has been released less than three weeks is probably not a great idea as the songs take a while to 'bed in' with fans.
I've always thought of the two things - album and tour - as being like revision and then the exam i.e I need to be word perfect on the lyrics before the night of the exam! I'm aware that Barney isn't word-perfect on either their current or older songs anymore but I insist that I am!
I've just read Steve's comments about the forthcoming gigs not supporting any new product so I suppose we can deduce that maybe the album is taking longer than expected and won't be out in time. There'd be no point in releasing what he describes as "another compilation" as that's been flogged to death before and it also seems pointless to take an easy option and knock out something like that just so they feel they're promoting something instead of just gigging for a change. It might be that Steve is calling our bluff and the new album is ready and will be released in Sept anyway!
That's typical New Order: they like to keep you guessing!
