Eamon Blog

Today's Shelf Pull: New Order, Two Minds Behaving Well

New Order's Brotherhood is on the shelf today: a 1986 LP where guitars, sequencers, Manchester cool and one very famous triangle all keep useful company.

Some albums have a split personality and make a terrible fuss about it.

Brotherhood has one and gets on with the work.

That is very New Order.

This is the 1986 LP where the band lets both halves of itself sit at the same table. On one side, there is the guitar-band memory: Manchester post-punk discipline, clipped emotion, basslines that sound like they know where the exits are. On the other, there is the electronic future arriving with clean shoes, a drum machine under its arm and a mild expression that should not be trusted.