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Andy wrote: TheScotsman

Weirdly the first time i read that review it came across as quite negative review for some reason and i laughed yeah usual bitter Jocks but read it again and it's really positive actually(4 stars!)

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Who is this Peter Morris?

Fuck me, this ever changing line up is hard to keep track of.

Speaking of which, is Peter Hook still in the band, Tomhocknell doesn't seem to want to mention it ;-) - although I did chuckle at his Freebass reference.

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Fotzepolitic wrote: Georgie magazine

So Hooky should receive compensation as, according to this review, the LP features his "...patented sound"?

Actually, this reviewer seems to have missed the minor bit of news about Hooky's exit...

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It's nice to read a review that doesn't have to repeatedly reference the flouncing fucker, though.

(It's also promising that different reviews pick out different tracks as highlights.)

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Andy wrote:

Fotzepolitic wrote: Georgie magazine

So Hooky should receive compensation as, according to this review, the LP features his "...patented sound"?

Actually, this reviewer seems to have missed the minor bit of news about Hooky's exit...

None of it sounds like Hooky, not really. It's just bass, he hasn't trademarked the bass.

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Mixmag

Not much depth to the review, but very positive again. 8/10.

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· edited

And a word from our Australian friends:

The Music

Negative about both Restless and of a couple of tracks I haven't seen criticised elsewhere - Nothing but a Fool and The Game - and yet still 4.5/5.

Bit worried now. Won't feel confident until Pitchfork give it 3.3 recurring / 10.

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http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/new-order-music-complete--album-review-10506169.html

On the band’s first studio album since the departure of Peter Hook, New Order don’t attempt to replace his characteristic lead basslines, but shift instead towards a more general electronic orientation.

It’s most effectively realised in tracks produced by Tom Rowlands, especially “Unlearn This Hatred”, a twitchy electro strut infectious enough to help one overlook the ragbag of clichés that passes for its lyric. A similar over-reliance on the familiar infects “Plastic”, a pulsing footnote to “I Feel Love”; and more agreeably “People on the High Line”, which approximates the propulsive guitar and bass interplay of Chic.

But mostly, the album comprises a series of scuttling bleepscapes lent individual character by unorthodox instrumental detail. The standout is “Nothing But a Fool”, which develops genuine depth from its lean openings of acoustic guitar arpeggios and drone textures.

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http://www.mixmag.net/read/new-order-reviews

Mixmag Magazine 8/10

The music world is built on hyperbole. But sometimes there is stone-cold fact. Like this one: New Order changed the face of modern music and shaped club culture in the UK and beyond. The Mancunian legends' first LP without Peter Hook is their 10th of a 35-year career that now sees them deliver, in 'Music Complete', an album of outstanding pop, shuddering dance-rock and intricate electronic moods.

Opener 'Restless' is classic New Order: big chords, even bigger hooks, jangly guitars and the sound of bass player Tom Chapman laying down the sort of low-slung, hammering rhythm the previous incumbent trademarked. Guests include La Roux's Elly Jackson, Iggy Pop and The Killers' Brandon Flowers (who named his band after a fictional group in a New Order video), while The Chems' Tom Rowlands produces two tracks and Stuart Price co-produces another.

Rowlands and Flowers contribute to 'Superheated's glorious, soaring stadium pop. Elsewhere, Italo pianos decorate both the Liquid Liquid-style post-punk of 'People High On The Line' and 'Tutti Frutti'. Here, Bernard Sumner goes head-to-head with Jackson on a hazy, spiralling disco-house stormer that references classic house and even 'Voodoo Ray'. The other stand-out, 'Plastic', uses Moroder-style keys to create a neo-Balearic classic.

A runaway victory for class over hype.

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Tony Casanova wrote: And a word from our Australian friends:

The Music

Negative about both Restless and of a couple of tracks I haven't seen criticised elsewhere - Nothing but a Fool and The Game - and yet still 4.5/5.

This guy is a massive NO fan who used to post here circa Get Ready. He's all over this record.

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Tony Casanova wrote:

Linus Solanki wrote: http://www.northerntransmissions.com/album-review/music-complete-new-order/

Cheers. By far the most comprehensive review so far. You get excited - I get excited too.

Yep very comprehensive but also the nearest to a negative/mixed review yet going on about it being an exhausting (much like reading the review), too long listen and yet the reviewer still gave it 7 out of 10.

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Has this one been posted before? I'm losing track now there's so many,

The Skinny

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Fotzepolitic wrote:

Tony Casanova wrote:

Linus Solanki wrote: http://www.northerntransmissions.com/album-review/music-complete-new-order/

Cheers. By far the most comprehensive review so far. You get excited - I get excited too.

Yep very comprehensive but also the nearest to a negative/mixed review yet going on about it being an exhausting (much like reading the review), too long listen and yet the reviewer still gave it 7 out of 10.

If the reviewer has the same taste as me, I am going to love Academic and The Game to such a degree that it will be worth buying the album just for those two tracks. The majority of the rest, I shall just about tolerate despite their inordinate length. One or two tracks will be skipped altogether.

I will then look forward to hearing those tracks that didn't make the final cut being released in either mini album format or as B sides.

Hopefully, I have more patience than the reviewer (who might only have listened to the album a couple of times). When I first heard Restless I was underwhelmed and concerned for the rest of the album. After listening to it dozens of times, I realised that I was wrong about that track - I absolutely love it.

At least the reviewer comes across as honest (even if he is wrong). Some of the other reviews come across as Paul Morley on E - sycophantic, pretentious, self-centred.

Just 6 days to go, but I won't jump all over the album until I have heard each new song at least ten times.

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The genius with Technique was how so utterly effortless it sounded.All The Way, Loveless, Run, Vanishing Point, Dream Attack... just effortless genius.The effortless was what made Technique the masterpiece.Every album since it sounded like New Order were trying and working and as good as Music Complete may turn out to be that effortless air will never be captured again.

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Fotzepolitic wrote: The genius with Technique was how so utterly effortless it sounded.All The Way, Loveless, Run, Vanishing Point, Dream Attack... just effortless genius.The effortless was what made Technique the masterpiece.Every album since it sounded like New Order were trying and working and as good as Music Complete may turn out to be that effortless air will never be captured again.

Restless sounds effortless and that's why it's a grower. At first you hate how it sounds same-y compared to most of New Order's back catalogue, but then with every repeated listen you start to pick up on little bits here and there that make it a one-off and then it just clicks. The RAC Remix is meticulously crafted but I grew tired of it. The original, still fresh, still a wonderful sound to my ears every time I spin it.

Plastic, while it seems a bit more restrained and minimal compared to Restless, also has that air of effortlessness about it. It doesn't flow as seamlessy as Restless does, but I love it and very much look forward to the album. The great thing about both of the new songs we've heard up until now is that they have that sense of empty space in them, they're not maximalist in terms of being overly layered (which is my biggest gripe with Republic or any of the later albums, except Crystal, what a fu*king masterpiece) and they hark back to the New Order of the 80s, which we all admit is the best kind. Speaking of maximalist, that's exactly what, for me, the RAC Mix does to Restless. The original is like a guitar-driven Technique track with just the right amount of everything, whereas the RAC Mix, as great and sparkly and perfectly produced it is, slightly crosses the line in terms of cramming so many layers into a piece of music and it doesn't bring out the basic charm of the song as the original does.

A reviewer (not going to bother with linking the review, it's in one of the comments before) compared this album, respectively the songs on the album, as being very similar to The Perfect Kiss as in being great pieces of music and meticulously crafted, but with no soul or mystique like e.g. Blue Monday or any other iconic NO song (pfft...like The Perfect Kiss isn't). If his words are anything to go by, and the new album is 11 Perfect Kisses in a row, wow..what a masterpiece it has to be.

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NikacP0kac93 wrote:

Fotzepolitic wrote: The genius with Technique was how so utterly effortless it sounded.All The Way, Loveless, Run, Vanishing Point, Dream Attack... just effortless genius.The effortless was what made Technique the masterpiece.Every album since it sounded like New Order were trying and working and as good as Music Complete may turn out to be that effortless air will never be captured again.

Restless sounds effortless and that's why it's a grower. At first you hate how it sounds same-y compared to most of New Order's back catalogue, but then with every repeated listen you start to pick up on little bits here and there that make it a one-off and then it just clicks. The RAC Remix is meticulously crafted but I grew tired of it. The original, still fresh, still a wonderful sound to my ears every time I spin it.

Plastic, while it seems a bit more restrained and minimal compared to Restless, also has that air of effortlessness about it. It doesn't flow as seamlessy as Restless does, but I love it and very much look forward to the album. The great thing about both of the new songs we've heard up until now is that they have that sense of empty space in them, they're not maximalist in terms of being overly layered (which is my biggest gripe with Republic or any of the later albums, except Crystal, what a fu*king masterpiece) and they hark back to the New Order of the 80s, which we all admit is the best kind. Speaking of maximalist, that's exactly what, for me, the RAC Mix does to Restless. The original is like a guitar-driven Technique track with just the right amount of everything, whereas the RAC Mix, as great and sparkly and perfectly produced it is, slightly crosses the line in terms of cramming so many layers into a piece of music and it doesn't bring out the basic charm of the song as the original does.

A reviewer (not going to bother with linking the review, it's in one of the comments before) compared this album, respectively the songs on the album, as being very similar to The Perfect Kiss as in being great pieces of music and meticulously crafted, but with no soul or mystique like e.g. Blue Monday or any other iconic NO song (pfft...like The Perfect Kiss isn't). If his words are anything to go by, and the new album is 11 Perfect Kisses in a row, wow..what a masterpiece it has to be.

I actually hate the perfect kiss, but judging by the 30 second snippets, which seem to have disappeared now there are some rally good stuff on this recored, not sure of the tutti frutti fruit machine intro sound and worried it sounds a bit electronic, raise the pressure, but two steps forward and one step back!

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· edited

pmep100 wrote: I actually hate the perfect kiss, but judging by the 30 second snippets, which seem to have disappeared now there are some rally good stuff on this recored, not sure of the tutti frutti fruit machine intro sound and worried it sounds a bit electronic, raise the pressure, but two steps forward and one step back!

I find Perfect Kiss to work for me only when I'm feeling well or happy or any kind of positive. It's a sort of uplifting song for me and it's a full-on sonic attack with all its drums and frogs and sequencers, but it's my favourite NO song by a mile (12" version of course, the album version is so underpowered) because it takes me on a journey like no other. During that 8-9 minutes it's only me clapping on my thighs manically or dancing like a retard to the wonderful soundscapes.

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TheArtsDesk

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PopMatters

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List

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DoubleJ

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