The first and the last LPs in New Order’s 80s catalog are funny things. They represent two very different extremes from the band that crawled out of the mopey ashes of Joy Division to become acid-house indie-dance gods. While 1989’s Technique hardly has any trace of the dark post-punk origins of the band in its sunny dance-floor vibes, their 1981 debut Movement is the sound of three already gloomy musicians coping withe the suicide of their best friend. The result is understandably bleak.
Surprisingly, though, the first track “Dreams Never End” eschew much of the plodding moroseness that dominates the album in favor of a sound much closer to the dance music the band would make in years to come. Like one other song on the album, “Doubts Even Here,” bassist Peter Hook is on vocal duty instead of the group’s usual frontman Bernard Sumner. Though “Hooky” is known for melodic basslines rather than vocal chops his delivery is still solid, if a bit detached, and the song is an interesting snapshot of what could have been. But fret not, because what Hook lacks in vocal range he more than makes up for with the most expressive bass playing of any post-punk outfit. His riffs from Joy Division songs like “Digital” and “Love Will Tear Us Apart” are legendary and he delivers a similarly memorable and catchy performance here. Bouncing between only two or three notes, Hook’s bass adds a strong sense of motion and movement to the track and largely invents what would become New Order’s impossible-to-stand-still-to sound. The other trademark ingredients like Stephen Morris’ machine-like drumming and Sumner’s razor guitar lines are there too, but from beginning to end this is Hook’s show and holy hell does he deliver.
Movement is a good album, don’t get me wrong, but “Dreams Never Die” outpaces the rest of the record by a mile, showing much more than any other song the band’s deep desire to evolve and the sound of what New Order would become rather than what they had already been.
