New Order - Power, Corruption & Lies

A brilliant record, enjoyable from beginning to end. New Order is among my favorites, in my collection with artists such as Depeche Mode, The Fashion Police, Red Flag, Rus Stewart, Book of Love, and Anything Box, and like all of these, this record never lets me down. A timeless classic, with a fantastic collection of brilliant songs... Gillian Gilbert's keys shine through the entire record, with that fascinatingly moody Peter Hook bass, and the additional instrumentation and percussion from Stephen Morris and Bernard Sumner's guitar, with that unmistakeable voice of his...This is a record that represents New Order in their finest. The mastering of the vinyl is bright and clean, and the artwork from Fantin Latour on the sleeve creates a complete package...I don't have a favorite track among these, as it would be impossible for me to choose, as I like the whole record so much, it is one I would never part with.

It has been widely acknowledged that the bonus disc (remixes, instrumentals and 12" versions) on this reissue was sourced from commercially available vinyl recordings instead of the original master tapes. Fans around the world noticed these faults right away and contacted the record company.

Peter Hook was quoted on his Myspace page as saying the situation was a mess and blamed the record company for not sending the band advance copies to do quality control.

On November 20th, 2008 Rhino Records issued a statement;

"Warner Bros. UK, Rhino and New Order regret that the initial pressings of the Collector Editions of 'Movement,' 'Power, Corruption & Lies,' 'Low-Life,' 'Brotherhood' and 'Technique' contain some minor audio problems on the bonus discs."

"We are now in the process of correcting the problems, but it should be noted that due to the age and condition of some of the original source tapes, the sound quality may vary. A further statement will be issued once the corrected product is available. At that time, the procedure for exchanging CD's will be announced. Thank you for your patience while we resolve this situation."

This is just wonderful. This is where New Order finally left behind the post-Joy Division sound of "Movement" and discovered something all their own.

Power, Corruption & Lies is revolutionary. Little like this existed at the time, and even now this LP has something different about it.

"Your Silent Face" is great, and "Ecstasy" is brilliant. The Peter Saville cover gives nothing away, which just adds to the album.

What looks like a colour wheel on the sleeve back is actually a key to deciphering the codes on the sleeve edges of Blue Monday, Confusion and this release. The outer ring of the wheel represents every letter in the alphabet with the solid bars doubling as numbers 1-9. The solid light green strip pointing "north" represents the letter "A" (and 1) the solid yellow bar to the right is "B" (and 2)and so-on ending with the split bar of pink and yellow for "Z". The first four boxes on Power Corruption and Lies decode as FACT, the last is split into two for the numbers 7 and 5.

I personally think this is New Order's best long player - with 'Age of Consent', '586' and 'Your Silent Face' you just can't go wrong for an introduction to THE best band in the world. And of course, it's all produced by Martin Hannett - bloody genius.