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Rating: New Order (Bernard Sumner, guitar and vocals; Peter Hook, bass; Steve Morris, drums; Gillian Gilbert, keyboards), 1985. After the international success of “Blue Monday” (the hit that radically changed the career of a band that, rising from the ashes of the tragic end of Joy Division, until then had shown itself to be still too tied to the sound and themes of its glorious past), it seemed that part of the early fans felt “betrayed” by a shift towards musical territories quite distant from the expectations placed on musicians who had signed, at the end of the '70s, true masterpieces of rock alongside their leader Ian Curtis.
In reality, the boom of that single had the main merit of truly realizing the “pact” that the four Joy Division members made at the height of their fame: “if one of us should die, the band will change its name and style, but will not dissolve”, and the fruits of this work of "re-appropriation" of an artistic identity left to itself until “Power, Corruption & Lies” (1983) can be best enjoyed in this "Low Life," in my opinion the best New Order album and one of the most significant of the entire British music scene of the '80s.
Fundamentally, the existential anguish and introspective themes of Ian Curtis are not abandoned by the band, but simply re-proposed in an absolutely original and seemingly jarring form, that of a minimalist and perversely melodic technopop, with particular attention given to combining cynical and elegant sounds with Bernard Sumner's singing, which in this occasion renders virtuous his vocal limitations, adding with his cold and apathetic voice a metropolitan touch that paradoxically ends up being moving.
This is the case with the opening “Love Vigilantes,” a shaky melody arranged with clear references to the Cure of those years, in which Sumner seems to somewhat emulate the memorable crooner performance of Curtis in “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” The neurotic “The Perfect Kiss” was the hit that pushed the album towards the top of the charts, and it can be considered the formal pinnacle of New Order's “dark disco” phase, which later led to the sophisticated pop of “True Faith” a few years later; with “This Time Of Night,” we enter decidedly darker and more haunting atmospheres, with a Sumner still starring in a painfully monotonous performance over a backdrop of icy keyboards; the electric “Sunrise” instead features one of the most classic and representative riffs of the New Order repertoire, enhanced by a frantic acceleration that makes this track one of the most memorable of “Low Life” and perhaps the one that pays the greatest tribute to the Joy Division era.
The B-side opens with the horror instrumental of “Elegia” that transports the album's mood from a metropolitan context to an unreal journey through the deepest nightmares (it is said that at that time the band made extensive use of drugs). The tension is however broken by the reassuring keyboards of “Sooner Than You Think,” probably the album’s most “light” track and which in its ostentatious neglect proves to be the most catchy, but it is only a prologue to what in my opinion is one of the group's greatest masterpieces, “Sub-Culture,” with its epic, fatalistic progression and the blend between the dramatic notes played by Gilbert (the real “engine,” in my opinion, of the New Order sound) and the obsessive New York rhythms certainly “suggested” by Arthur Baker's production. The song's lyrics, perfectly integrated into a sort of paranoid nursery rhyme with Sumner's indifferent and “smothered” interpretation, hide in their simplicity a terrible and disillusioned vision, yet not without a distant glimmer of hope, regarding the universal solitude of modern man and the difficulty of human relationships (it should be noted that it was the middle of the Reagan and Thatcher '80s):
“What do I get out of this?
I always try, I always miss
One of these days you’ll go back to your home
You won’t even notice that you are alone
One of these days when you sit by
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 The Perfect Kiss (04:49)
I stood there beside myself
Thinking hard about the weather
Then came by a friend of mine
Suggested we go out together
Then I knew it from the start
This friend of mine would fall apart
Pretending not to see his gun
I said let's go out and have some fun
I know you know
We believe in a land of love
I know you know
We believe in a land of love
I have always thought about
Staying here and going out
Tonight I should have stayed at home
Playing with my pleasure zone
He has always been so strange
I'd often thought he was deranged
Pretending not to see his gun
I said let's go out and have some fun
I know you know
We believe in a land of love
I know you know
04 Sunrise (06:00)
I've been waiting to hear your voice for too long now
One way conversations do not work somehow
Tell me how does one get your soul in touch with the one above
When one way conversations pay a price for the use of love
I tried so hard last night you would not talk to me
I live with the fear of the few with the gift
And I know what's going to be
Why did you never speak my name in front of my family
You gave a gift that you then took away
Like you never did before
Your name might be God but you don't say that much to me
Your name might be God but you don't say that much to me
We might be your black sheep
But you forgot us a long time ago
We might be your lost sheep
But it's time you remembered us now
As we spend our days together, nothing can go wrong
No one told the truth about it because it was so strong
If you ever think of me, if you hear my name
If you read between the lines, you'll hang your head in shame
These ears will never hear, the ice will never freeze
Whatever I have done for you I did because you complained
( Whatever you may think of me whatever you may say
I've lived my whole life in danger,
06 Sooner Than You Think (05:12)
Hello, everyone, it's nice to be here
I've come so far to see you all
I can see your deep blue eyes
They sleep beneath the open sky
Before you stands one like your brother
Swear to God he needs no other
But how can I afford to be
Here with you so carelessly
You know what you did was so unkind
You search for the life we need to find
There's right and there's wrong
And there's good and there's bad
And there's an answer to this I wish I had
Oh, you know what I mean, yes you do
Oh, you know what I mean, yes you do
Well we had a party in our hotel last night
It ended up in an awful fight
My friend left me and my heart too
I hope I don't end up like you
Oh, you know what I mean, yes you do
Oh, you know what I mean, yes you do
Your country is a wonderful place
It pales my England into disgrace
To buy a drink that is so much more reasonable
I think I'll go there when it gets seasonable
You know what you did was so unkind
You search for the life you need to find
There's right and there's wrong
And there's good and there's bad
And there's an answer to this I wish I had
Oh, you know what I mean, yes you do
07 Sub-culture (04:58)
I like walking in the park
When it gets late at night
I move round in the dark
And leave when it gets light
I sit around by day
Tied up in chains so tight
These crazy words of mine
So wrong they could be right
What do I get out of this
I always try, I always miss
One of these days you'll go back to your home
You won't even notice that you are alone
One of these days when you sit by yourself
You'll realise you can't shaft without someone else
In the end you will submit
It's got to hurt you a little bit
I like talking in my sleep
When people work so hard
They need what they can keep
A choice that leaves them scarred
A view without a room
Unveils the truth so soon
And when the sun goes down
You've lost what you had found
What do I get out of this
I always try, I always miss
One of these days you'll go back to your home
You won't even notice that you are alone
One of these days when you sit by yourself
You'll realise you can't shaft without someone else
In the end you will submit
It's got to hurt you a little bit
What do I get out of this
I always try, I always miss
One of these days you'll go back to your home
You won't even notice that you are alone
One of these days when you sit by yourself
You'll realise you can't shaft without someone else
In the end you will submit
It's got to hurt you a little bit
What do I get out of this
I always try, I always miss
One of these days you'll go back to your home
You won't even notice that you are alone
One of these days when you sit by yourself
You'll realise you can't shaft without someone else
In the end you will submit
It's got to hurt you a little bit
What do I get out of this
I always try, I always miss
One of these days you'll go back to your home
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Other reviews
By Ghemison
Low Life is an astonishing album: completely unruly ... at times brilliant, sometimes very sweet, other times cathartic.
"this world sucks and I want to dance over it!"
By Ale87
Low Life is the album that best represents the soul of New Order, confused, disordered, without a guiding line.
This Time of Night is not only the best of the album but of their entire discography.
