Temptation

VINYL FORMAT. Tracks: "Temptation" b/w "Hurt." Limited edition! "Though clearly taking steps away from their past, New Order keeps some of the elements of the former band's sound. Drummer Stephen Morris in particular plays a familiar beat, albeit one at a decidedly more jaunty tempo than on most Joy Division tracks. And the rest of the band falls in accordingly: vocalist/guitarist Bernard Sumner rains down sheets of guitar; bassist Peter Hook adds his sinuous bass, almost a reinvention of the instrument as a melodic counterpoint rather than providing the bottom register of the music; and the only member added to the remaining members of the former band, keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, provides modern synthesizer textures. Morris does vary his drumming a bit in his trying to keep up with the 16th-note movement in Gilbert's Giorgio Moroder-like sequencer patterns. Thus, the drummer ends up playing something akin to rhythms found in mid- to late- '70s disco and underground New York dance music. It is a technique he would refine on the Power, Corruption & Lies album. The end product sounds like Joy Division meets Donna Summer with a bit of the tunefulness of the Cure thrown in. Sumner's lyrics match the enthusiastic tone of the music with an ultimately uplifting feeling of triumph after a romantic breakup. After the music fades in, the singer is heard phonetically singing one of the song's hooks in a falsetto. Then the verse: 'A heaven I'd get with a hope/Just like the feeling inside, it's no joke/And though it hurts me to treat you this way/Betrayed my words, I'd never heard, too hard to say/Up, down, turn around/Please don't let me hit the ground/Tonight I think I'll walk alone I'll find my soul as I go home.' Another of the song's major hooks comes in the way of the songs coda: 'Oh, you've got green eyes/Oh, you've got blue eyes/Oh, you've got grey eyes/And I've never seen anyone quite like you before/No, I've never met anyone quite like you before,' an infectious singalong chorus. This would have been a shock to the band's old fans; Joy Division was not known for singalongs." - Bill Janovitz / All Music Guide