No There’s Nothing Else

Some drink to sleep. Some make piano key neckties. Some drive Dodge Stratuses.

(Strati? Stratuses.)

But Bernie Sumner has a very peculiar, very Manchester-ish form of the working man’s blues. After all, this is a guy who, in his working lifetime, fucking wrote the most over-rated New Order song ever “Blue Monday” the most under-rated New Order song of all time, “Temptation”.

His singular voice, and the ability to pen a line that transcends meaning into the sort of lyric that ends up beating like a heart when you’re fucked up at 3 A.M. (see: “Regret“‘s “look at me/I’m not you”, “Guilt Is A Useless Emotion“‘s “you sure know a lot/for a girl”, “Blue Monday“‘s “how does it feel/to treat me like you do” or, in fact, most of that song…or pretty much every New Order song, ever), leaves him, with the dissolution of New Order as a result of Peter Hook being fat starting a new band, Freebass, which is totally going to be taken seriously, and forging the signature of Ian Curtis obviously being unable to get along with anyone, ever, a daunting task:

How do you, as Bernie Sumner, lyricist extraordinaire, forge a new band from the ashes of what is arguably the most influential group on pop and indie in the current musical landscape? Hell, Superstar DJ Steve Aoki wouldn’t have a job if New Order had never recorded “Bizarre Love Triangle”.

You start a band with a name worse than “New Order”-i.e. the only band name ever worse than “Joy Division”-Bad Lieutenant. We owe Johnny Marr for the name, thanks dudeicus.

So New Order’s Phil Cunningham and Stephen Morris are on hand here, too, and what we have is the album Never Cry Another Tear Never Cry Another Tear (oh god that’s REALLY THE TITLE?!?!).

The song in this post, “Poisonous Intent”, comes near the end of the album, and it’s the most New Order-sounding thing on the whole record. Other than the regrettably embarrassing slap-bass during the chorus, I fucking LOVE this song-it embraces everything that made New Order so awesome, so great, so lovably exhilarating and synapse-stimulating. They made the sort of music that gets saved up in your spinal fluid, to be unleashed in a way that makes your brain warm and body fuzzy, causing you to lean against the dairy cooler when “Regret” comes on in the supermarket. And this is proof that they still can, to an extent.

No, I’m not saying that “Poisonous Intent” can stand head-to-head with some of New Order’s best, but it would fit on the more guitar-based modern-day working-class melancholia of Waiting For The Siren’s Call, their sadly-overlooked swan song. Also, come on: there’s something charming about Bernard’s declaration that with his “new-found wealth” he’s going to “buy a guitar” and “nothing else”. Right. And, obviously, some hamburgers-right, Bernie?

Bad Lt. play Webster Hall in NY on Nov 21 and I will be there.