Review Summary: A substantial insight into New Order's earliest live recordings, this pre-Movement material shows the dark places the band had left to explore, with the post-“Temptation” songs foreshadowing the new genre they would soon dominate.
With the death of their lead singer, and along with him the Joy Division moniker, the Manchester group now known as New Order was bereft with grief both in sound and mind. On January 26, 1981, in this very primitive era of the band, having played only a handful of gigs in their restructured formation (Gillian Gilbert, then girlfriend of drummer Stephen Morris, will join the band in early October 1981 to play the keyboard, Bernard Sumner remains on guitar but now takes lead vocals, and Peter Hook stays on bass), legendary radio producer John Peel allows a very curious British audience to peer into the oft mysterious and menacing world of this particular group of musicians for the first time, post-Joy Division. And what they got was something not too unfamiliar; there was still a stark chill to the sound, a dank haze that permeated the sound and architecture of the arrangements.
Early recordings of tracks like "Truth", "Senses", and “ICB” do not sound drastically different from the versions that appear on Movement, but nevertheless depict for the first time on a public forum the band attempting to exorcise the ghosts of the past (eventually laying it to rest with “Elegia” on Low-Life). From the weary, woeful vocals of Sumner to Hook’s minimal bass lines, Side One of this record plays like a funereal dirge, a procession of moments gone and moments that died in the womb. The exception to these sordid affairs is the noticeably more cheerful closer of Side One “Dreams Never End”, interesting not only for its lead vocals performed by Hook instead of Sumner, but for its apparent rebuttal to a song from a different time (“I guess your dreams always end,” Curtis had sung on “Insight”; New Order adopted a different perspective.)
Side Two of the album is far less somber than the first half, and comes from a time when the band had finally wrung out the proto goth-trappings of their previous work, and adopted a more electronic-driven style after the success of their seminal synth-pop single “Temptation” in 1982. Nevertheless, Side Two begins with what may seem a strange decision for a cover: “Turn the Heater On”, a Ken Hayes reggae tune and the favorite song of Ian Curtis according to the band. New Order’s version of the song is particularly captivating, due to the perfect blend of the two disparate genre styles; the coolly unaffected Manchester edge effectively melds with the thick heady atmosphere characteristic of dub, culminating in a hypnotic yet captivating cover. Of course, post-punk bands of this era typically exhibited a reggae/dub influence (PiL, the Slits, Bauhaus) but one is left with the futile desire that New Order had held more dearly on to this style, as their interpretation is indeed engaging and strangely beautiful.
“Too Late”, another rare track found only on this album is another primordial example of New Order’s synth-laden approach. Morris’ beats are markedly less complex than they would grow to be in later albums, and even Gilbert’s electronic accommodations prove modest, though the culmination of these simple, basic, elements nevertheless result in the formation trademark sound of early New Order: danceable, and haunting.
The real treasure on the album however, is the original version of “5-8-6”, a song that would not reappear until 1983’s Power, Corruption and Lies, but here shines remarkably as a heavier, minimalistic dance number that defies one to sit still while listening to it. The build-up is remarkably simple and effective, eventually bursting from the speakers with dark, thrilling synths and a muscular, lumbering bassline. Ironically, when Sumner shouts that he “hears silence in [his] heart”, it is hard to sympathize, as the song itself invigorates the listener with a cold and crackling energy that races along with the beat. Truly, this song is worth the album price alone.
While perhaps not suitable for neophytes, this album is definitely worth a trip to the record store (or Amazon.com, if you’re afraid of the sun) for New Order fans who are interested in hearing very early recordings of some of their favorite songs, and for the two previously unreleased tracks, which are great in and of themselves. Though New Order would be known for their opaque and introverted relationship with the world, this release gives us a brief picture of the band at their most vulnerable, but also their most daring, and helps cast a brighter light on the history of this reclusive group that would soon become pop legends.
