Artist: Bad Lieutenant
Album: Never Cry Another Tear
Year: 2009
Grade: 1.5 pretzels
Perhaps it was inevitable. After nearly thirty years of playing music together, Bernard Sumner, Stephan Morris and Peter Hook (the core nucleus of New Order) finally got tired of each other. New Order was effectively declared dead back in 2007, when Hook announced that he was leaving. Now, after a couple years of speculation and noncommittal press statements, we’ve finally learned what Sumner and Morris have planned for the future. They’ve reformed as Bad Lieutenant, releasing their debut album this month. While this lineup is essentially just a Hook-less New Order, the name change clearly signifies a shift in direction for the band. As sad as it is to see this group of friends dissolve, after surviving years of joy and tragedy in both Joy Division and New Order, perhaps it is indeed time for people to move on and try new things.
However, one listen to Never Cry Another Tear may make you rethink such optimistic thinking. It’s truly shocking how painfully bland Bad Lieutenant’s debut has turned out. New Order’s pulsing dance-rock and synth-flavored alternative anthems have been replaced by dreary, generic , adult-oriented rock. Exactly what are we to make of a song like the album’s lead single, “Sink Or Swim”? It goes on for four minutes without ever doing anything. It’s just one main chord progression and a riff played over and over and over again, with a half-hearted bridge thrown in. And while Sumner has never exactly been the most commanding of singers, he sounds positively feeble here in 2009. There’s no bite, no edge, no spark. There’s just nothing in this music.
Mind you, that’s just the single. The rest of the album is just as lifeless and mundane. The overlong “Summer Days On Holiday” is set up like a mature rumination on the past, but just sounds like an old man awkwardly pining for his youth. Then you’ve got the insufferable ballads, like the drippy “Running Out Of Luck”. Even the presence of Blur bassist Alex James, known for his dynamic rhythm lines, can’t life these songs out of first gear. It’s hard to tell whether Hook’s absence has dragged the music this far down, but the fact remains: New Order never sounded this bad when Hooky’s liquid basslines were gurgling in the background.
The album does lift its weary head out of swampy mediocrity on a couple of tracks, including the swirling “Walk On Silver Water” and the driving “Twist Of Fate”. These are the only songs where Bad Lieutenant sound even half-awake. However, they still can’t compare to the vast majority of New Order’s catalogue, even in recent years. In their prime, New Order were a band living right on the border between anthemic rock and dance floor abandon. Bad Lieutenant has slide way too far into the rock side of the spectrum, revealing Sumner’s weaknesses as a rock frontman and the band’s general disconnect with what exciting music tends to sound like. Maybe Hooky will come back. Maybe Sumner will rediscover his old form. Either way, the future seems bleak. Never Cry Another Tear is a complete disappointment, no matter how you slice it.
However, one listen to Never Cry Another Tear may make you rethink such optimistic thinking. It’s truly shocking how painfully bland Bad Lieutenant’s debut has turned out. New Order’s pulsing dance-rock and synth-flavored alternative anthems have been replaced by dreary, generic , adult-oriented rock. Exactly what are we to make of a song like the album’s lead single, “Sink Or Swim”? It goes on for four minutes without ever doing anything. It’s just one main chord progression and a riff played over and over and over again, with a half-hearted bridge thrown in. And while Sumner has never exactly been the most commanding of singers, he sounds positively feeble here in 2009. There’s no bite, no edge, no spark. There’s just nothing in this music.
Mind you, that’s just the single. The rest of the album is just as lifeless and mundane. The overlong “Summer Days On Holiday” is set up like a mature rumination on the past, but just sounds like an old man awkwardly pining for his youth. Then you’ve got the insufferable ballads, like the drippy “Running Out Of Luck”. Even the presence of Blur bassist Alex James, known for his dynamic rhythm lines, can’t life these songs out of first gear. It’s hard to tell whether Hook’s absence has dragged the music this far down, but the fact remains: New Order never sounded this bad when Hooky’s liquid basslines were gurgling in the background.
The album does lift its weary head out of swampy mediocrity on a couple of tracks, including the swirling “Walk On Silver Water” and the driving “Twist Of Fate”. These are the only songs where Bad Lieutenant sound even half-awake. However, they still can’t compare to the vast majority of New Order’s catalogue, even in recent years. In their prime, New Order were a band living right on the border between anthemic rock and dance floor abandon. Bad Lieutenant has slide way too far into the rock side of the spectrum, revealing Sumner’s weaknesses as a rock frontman and the band’s general disconnect with what exciting music tends to sound like. Maybe Hooky will come back. Maybe Sumner will rediscover his old form. Either way, the future seems bleak. Never Cry Another Tear is a complete disappointment, no matter how you slice it.
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