A Retrospective Look at New Order’s “Low-Life” (1985)

In the polarised Great Britain of the mid-Eighties New Order’s “Low-Life” arrived like a sonic manifesto that bridged the chasm between post-punk’s introspection (see Unknown Pleasures) and the hedonistic pulse of the Eighties synth pop ‘pre-Rave’ dance floor. Forty years on, Fact 100 their beautiful and innovative Saville Associates designed third album stands as the moment when the long shadows of Joy Division were replaced by high hopes and their own distinctive path.

From the opening salvo of “Love Vigilantes,” it’s abundantly clear that Bernard Sumner and company had left behind the transitionary austere monochrome of “Movement.” Here was a band finally comfortable in their own skin, marrying melancholy with euphoria in a manner that imitators have never managed to replicate.

The record’s crown jewel remains “The Perfect Kiss,” a glorious collision of Stephen Morris’s metronomic percussion, Hooky’s high-slung bass melodies, and Sumner’s deceptively simple lyrical confessionals. A band now operating at the zenith of their powers, an unforgettable riff, unconventional and essential. I cannot move on without mentioning the epic and lauded ten minute Jonathan Demme close up music video of this single.

“Sub-culture” and “Face Up” showcase Gillian Gilbert’s increasingly vital synth work, while the hauntingly beautiful “Elegia” demonstrates that the band could still conjure the spectral atmospherics of their previous incarnation, aka Closer side 2, when the mood took them.

What’s most striking about “Low-Life” now is how modern it still sounds. While their contemporaries were mired in the production excesses of the mid-Eighties multi-tracking electronic new toys, Factory Records’ finest were crafting a blueprint that would inform alternative dance music for decades to come. There’s a directness and humanity to these tracks that transcends the often clinical, technology-obsessed approach of the era.

Sumner’s vocals, once derided as weak, off-key and amateurish by the more unforgiving critics including the mighty NME now seem perfectly pitched, vulnerable yet determined, the voice of a reluctant frontman who discovered he had plenty to say after all – the aforementioned humanity perhaps.

“Low-Life” captures New Order at the precise moment they became truly indispensable, the exact point where they ceased to be a fascinating curiosity and blossomed into genuine innovators. It’s the sound of a group of working-class northerners reinventing pop music on their own gloriously idiosyncratic terms.

Forty years on, and where has that disappeared? “Low-Life” towers over the landscape of British music like the Haçienda’s rugged concrete pillars once dominated Manchester’s skyline. Essential listening and definitely in my Top 20 albums of all time.