New Order Revitalizes '80s Synth-Pop Groove

New Order
Get Ready

New Order's new album is like a very comfortable piece of clothing that you bought in the '80s but are not embarrassed to wear out in public today.

Get Ready showcases New Order's impressive ability to preserve the past without reliving it. Although the album has sounds like your cookie-cutter '80s synth-pop band, it lacks the repackaged feeling too common with established bands who have found their style and refuse to change.

The edgy punk-inspired riffs and electronica-esque drum beats recall the discotheque sensation conveyed by the band's previous singles such as "Blue Monday." Even Get Ready's "60 Miles an Hour" borrows from the old hit, concretely linking the album to the past but revolutionizing it at the same time.

The familiar sound of New Order has not mellowed at all from its '80s underground beginnings -- if anything, the album is more aggressive. The formula of more assertion, less dance yields an extreme effect that prefers punk to synth-pop and new wave. "Rock the Shack" continually pumps the adrenaline that vocalist Bernard Sumner mentions in the song's lyrics.

Both lyrically and musically, there is no question that the band recalls and appreciates its roots. The band greatly retains the flavor common to its contemporaries, musical icons such as Depeche Mode, The Cure and Duran Duran.

But the David Bowie-inspired Brit band seems to favor a current spirit of experimentalism and collaboration with icons of the present. "Turn My Way" features striking vocals by former Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan. And the song encompasses the essence of the past-to-present nature of the album by blending a Pumpkins sound with quintessential '80s melancholic lyrics and new wave music.

All of this extremism in the blending of the styles of different musical eras leads to a similarly extremist quality of fluctuation between joy and longing for things lost. The "Blue Monday"-esque abused sensation intrinsic to tracks such as "Primitive Notion" juxtaposes itself with the idyllic, reveling sensation conveyed by "Someone Like You."

There is a comfortable balance to this album, both in theming and in genre, that presents an end product without a displeasing track. Every song on the album is appealing, whether one focuses on lyrics or on sound. And there is just enough variation between tracks that a differentiation can be made without any detriment to the continuity of Get Ready.

New Order has, after a long absence from the LP scene, re-emerged with an album that, out of a perfect nostalgia, is a perfect mix of the band's past and present. This album fits just right on the first try and won't be out of style any time soon.

The Arts & Entertainment Editor can be reached at artsdesk@unc.edu.