NEW ORDER
LOW-LIFE
ONE OF IMPERIAL-PHASE NEW ORDER’S GREATEST ALBUMS GETS THE EXPANDED TREATMENT WITH EXTRAS THAT INCLUDE RAUCOUS LIVE SHOWS AND A WHOLE HOST OF DEMOS
RHINO
© Kevin Cummins
★★★★
Votes for Power, Corruption & Lies, Technique or Music Complete are also acceptable, but Low-Life is arguably New Order’s best album. By 1985, the band knew who they wanted to be, how to achieve it and, crucially, they were still mates.
The financial black hole caused by the running of the Haçienda was about to emerge, but for album three New Order were a gang at the top of their game, using the studio as a playground. On the finished record, that’s most obvious in the closing Face Up, where the intro invents happy house three years early and Bernard Sumner’s “Woo!” in the first chorus is one of his most delighted yelps in a career full of them.