Low-Life [CD]

Awesome. There's no other word for it. I recall
buying the vinyl (yes albums still came out on
plastic in them days) in Hammersmith in 1985.

From the very start - and the album version has
the tracks in a different order! - it grabs you
and pulls you in. Love Vigilantes is a sarcasm-laced anti-war song which became a live
favourite for years afterwards. This lead onto
The Perfect Kiss (not the long version on the 12")
with its enigmatic lyric and funky Latin percussion (!) and then into darker territory with
a track I've often played myself, This Time Of
Night.

Ironically, the band were to include a vocal
sample of a famous tippling magazine columist,
Jeffrey Bernard, on the track's intro as he
uttered a sentance containing the album's
title. Jeff wasn't keen so Hooky voiced it instead and he can be heard quietly speaking the
offending line right at the start just before
the drum machine starts (mind your speakers if
you turn it up to hear him!).

Side two sees some total belters, as if things
could get any better: Sunrise an explosion of
energy following Elegia which at the time was
compared to the Cocteau Twins! Yes, there's
also the deliberate use of a scratched record
sometime through the track to keep your attention!

Sooner Than You Think is another bitingly sarcastic anthem against the inanities asked of
the band by music journalists.

The final pair of tracks take us out on a high.
Subculture is apparently about the joys of sex
(follow the lyrics) and Face Up ends the opus
with a joyous chorus of "oh, I cannot bear the
thought of you!": to see and hear hundreds of
people sign this live is quite something!

All this and a baking paper cover too (don't ask).
One of my favourite albums of all time, this. It's all here: the quality of the songs, the
production, the machines and the energy.

Like I said, awesome. SO BUY IT.

Rating: 8/10

Best tracks: "This Time of Night", "Sunrise", "Elegia".

New Order's third album is possibly even better than Power, Corruption and Lies, and that was a bit of a classic! The band have found their niche with their trademark bass-fuelled, ringing-guitar embellished dance-pop, yet here the quartet admirably try a few new things; the opening "Love Vigilantes" is best described as electronic country and western, yet it's played out so effortlessly and wonderfully that it's nowhere near as gimmicky as that description might suggest. The lyrics are something else entirely, listen and find out for yourself!

Okay, now the song that follows is the greatest ever New Order song, and that's "The Perfect Kiss", but, but BUT!!! The version here on Low-Life just does not cut it, and for me, takes the album down a notch. The only way to hear this masterpiece of dance-pop music is to hear the glorious, complete 12" version, which clocks in at around nine minutes and is simply one of the finest songs ever created. This version has around four minutes cut out and boy are they missed; obviously the song's still great, even when cut this badly, but it's a shadow of its full-length version. The third verse is entirely gone, which means the song has a tenth of its original lyrical impact, and worst of all, the heavenly finale is cut to ribbons, and believe me when I say that the complete version of the song's finale is, and always will be, New Order's single most extraordinary moment. Go and listen to the 12" vinyl, or the LP version of retrospective Substance (the CD version still cuts the song, but only by forty seconds, which isn't as bad I suppose!), for the complete version. Phew! That's my rant over!

"This Time of Night" is up there with "Age of Consent" as being one of the absolute best New Order album tracks; how can I describe it? It's great to dance to, yet something inside it might make you weep as well, so heartbreakingly emotional it is. You could almost subtitle the song "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes" if some other, massively inferior song of around the same time hadn't already used it. Seriously though, this song has one of the best ever New Order choruses, and a miraculous piano section that'll have you wondering how mere humans created music this damn good! A wave of thunderous guitars are the heart of "Sunrise", which marks another departure for New Order, which introduces a heavy rock-influence to their dance sound. The band would make guitars and a rock-fuelled sound the basis for the majority of their next album, the disappointing Brotherhood, but at least on the basis of this rather splendid adrenaline rush of a song, the band proved that lots of guitars and New Order could be a very good thing indeed. The melancholic instrumental "Elegia" (which you can also hear in a mammoth, extended version on the band's Retro box set) is another song unlike anything New Order had done up until this point, and it's a very beautiful, moving piece. Incidentally, it was featured in the 1980's teen hit Pretty in Pink, along with non-album singles "Thieves Like Us" and "Shell-Shock"! "Sooner Than You Think" is a solid, decent song, no classic by any stretch of the imagination, but it's got that great mid-eighties New Order feel that's difficult to resist.

"Sub-Culture", which was also a single, is featured here in a relatively more restrained, less overblown incarnation than the one that most people who have heard the song will recognise. Some hate the single version of "Sub-Culture"; me, I love it, but I can see why some don't, since the production is pumped to the max and every element of the song is way over the top. I think I love it for the same reasons many don't. I think I prefer it to the Low-Life version, which sounds less exciting, less thrilling. If they'd had put on the single versions of this and "The Perfect Kiss", Low-Life would be getting a 5-star rating without a second thought.

A popular music magazine recently rated closing track "Face-Up" as one of the worst songs ever by a great band, which I think is a totally unfair criticism, as I think it makes for a delightfully offbeat finale, especially during that chorus, where Sumner yelps and whoops "Oh, how I cannot bear the thought of you!" over the jauntiest chorus imaginable!

Low-Life is another great New Order album; a clearly imperfect one, but home to some of the band's very best songs.

Low-Life was where I got onboard and 21 years later I'm still a fan! From the booming drum intro this album captures New Order at the top of their game.Love Vigilantes' story of war and religion now reminds you the more things change, the more they stay the same! The Perfect Kiss is both state of the art (in 1985!) and a tribute to Ian Curtis ("My friend he took his final breath, Now I know the perfect kiss is the kiss of death").This Time Of Night is hauntingly beautiful with Peter Hook's comic spoken intro ("I'm one of the few people I know who enjoys sports on television"). Sunrise, the best rocker since their Joy Division days with an intro that DEMANDS maximum volume.

Elegia is proof that New Order really were the 80's equivalent of Pink Floyd, a wonderful, slow building instrumental that may be their finest ever track. Sooner Than You Think still baffles me lyrically but it's a great track with the guitar - bass interplay effortlessly wonderful. Sub-Culture is epic, forget the AWFUL remix,the orginal version is where it's at. An awesome bass solo by Peter Hook reminds you just how good he can be, while Barney's lyrics are sharp and sour. Face Up is the archetypal New Order track; painfully sad and wonderfully joyful at the same time.If you only own one New Order album (you shouldn't there's several more you should have!), make it Low-Life.