New Order: Bernard Sumner (vocals, guitar); Peter Hook (vocals, bass); Stephen Morris (vocals, drums); Gillian Gilbert (keyboards). After the tragic suicide of Joy Division's Ian Curtis, the band restructured. Guitarist Bernard Sumner, whose gift for combining the melodic with the hypnotic had been the band's cornerstone, stepped up to the microphone. The resulting debut MOVEMENT finds the group taking a brave step away from its unfortunate past. Preserved are Joy Division's dark edges--Sumner's guitar attack swerves deftly between funereal repetition and noisy bursts, while bassist Peter Hook continues to explore his instrument's upper registers. From the slow, deliberate build and melodic interplay of its opening moment, the mid-tempo "Dreams never End," MOVEMENT boldly states the band's more experimental, slightly less emotionally turgid agenda. That Sumner is trapped under the influence of Curtis is undeniable--at times, the resemblance is alarming, but MOVEMENT is the sound of Sumner finding his voice. The spacey synth-pop of "The Him" foreshadows the sound New Order was to slowly develop, as Sumner became more comfortable with the upper reaches of his vocal range. Dynamic play abounds--the existentialist drone of "Truth" gives way to a crushing, chaotic guitar wail, while the intense, revealingly named "Doubts Even Here" slowly erupts beneath a disturbing double-vocal, stressing the burgeoning diversity of this legendary band in the making.

• Genre: Pop
• RSD Date: DDD
• Format: Vinyl
• Released: 4/5/2019