Written by: Alex Green

Only one year after the release of 1985’s Low-Life, New Order’s Brotherhood finds the band checking in with an intricate song-cycle that has far more bite than its predecessor.

Alongside the stinging bass lines of Peter Hook, singer Bernard Sumner sounds more assured than ever, stepping from the shadows and delivering an album’s worth of vivid and arresting vocal turns.

The hushed blast of “Paradise” gets things started, its rich sonic textures and spectral background vocals making this quite easily one of the most addictive songs of the ’80s. “Weirdo” is an imploring post-punk shuffle, “As It Is When It Was” is a dreamy track that shifts magnifciently into a stunning New Wave tug and “Way Of Life” is a spry number that finds Sumner soloing away magnificently while declaring, “You told me a pack of lies/That I can’t even reason with…”

Recorded in London, Liverpool and Dublin, Brotherhood may not have made much of a splash on the Billboard charts in America (peaking at #191), but back home in England, the album hit #1 on the indie albums chart and went top ten on the UK albums chart. While its churning rhythms and undulating bass lines may embroider each number with a dark and at times even menacing energy, Brotherhood, complex and layered listen as it is, is not lacking pop appeal. For example, the catchy synth pop glow of “Bizarre Love Triangle” was the album’s most radio-ready song. With its big chorus and catchy snyth riffs, the song was a top five dance track in the U.S., but curiously it didn’t do much else; it didn’t even crack the Top 50 of either the British or U.S. charts. For a number that was voted by Rolling Stone as one of the 500 greatest songs of all time, perplexingly, its chart success was middling at best.

Later, “Angel Dust” is a spectral techo shakedown, “All Day Long” is a mesmerizing blend of sonic architecture that’s puncuatd by a weaving surf guitar riff and “State Of The Nation” is a rousing dancefloor call to arms.

One of the decade’s very best.