Ian Curtis' suicide flung open a portal to an alternative reality for his Joy Division band-mates. Bound by a pact made well before his death, they linked arms and forged ahead in the knowledge that they must do so without the band's central figure, the most captivating frontman in alternative rock.
As New Order, the Manchester outfit took its time bidding farewell to Curtis' troubled spirit. Transitioning from debut single Ceremony, a Joy Division song, to debut album Movement (1981) with its familiar themes of loss and confusion, the band then struck out with synth-pop floor-filler Blue Monday, an epic 12-inch single that owed as much to Dusseldorf electronica pioneers Kraftwerk and the New York dance scene as it did their former incarnation. They had found their own sound.
This propulsive energy infused New Order's second studio album Power, Corruption & Lies (1983), marking the band's newfound determination to reinterpret the dance-oriented influences that had always been present in Joy Division's music.
Opening track Age Of Consent springs into life with a typically urgent Peter Hook bass line, triggering a frenetic drum pattern upon which layers of guitar and synth are built to create a thing of beauty.
Bernard Sumner's vocals are stronger and more playful than what had gone before, and there's a tangible sensation of moving out of the darkness into a brighter space, albeit one where indignation has displaced despondency.
Synth-dub track We All Stand meanders by comparison before The Village turns on the sunshine with a bouncing love song, and 5-8-6 reprises Blue Monday's cyclical synth pattern. Your Silent Face follows, subdued, cryptic and quite lovely, while Ultraviolence beats out a tribal dance before Ecstacy and the chiming guitars of Leave Me Alone bring proceedings to a close.
The album left behind those who wanted to hear Joy Division Mark II, and for a while New Order flourished in Curtis' receding shadow.
