Waiting for the Sirens' Call

1	Who's Joe? 5:43
2	Hey Now What You Doing 5:13
3	Waiting for the Sirens' Call 5:40
4	Krafty 4:33
5	I Told You So 5:58
6	Morning Night and Day 5:08
7	Dracula's Castle 5:38
8	Jetstream / Ana Matronic 5:21
9	Guilt Is a Useless Emotion 5:37
10	Turn 4:33
11	Working Overtime 3:27
12	Guilt Is a Useless Emotion Bonus Track / Mac Quayle Vocal Mix 6:29

Barnes & Noble

Having taken a good long time to take stock -- it's been more than four years since their last outing -- the members of New Order have gone back to basics on this disc, eschewing the conventional lite rock of Get Ready in favor of the throbbing-yet-ethereal sounds of their heyday. Waiting for the Sirens' Call brims with songs that showcase the slinky sensuality that's made New Order such a touchstone for new-generation bands like the Killers and the Bravery -- particularly "Who's Joe," an archetypal example of Peter Hook's ability to carry a song on the four strings of his bass. The disc's soaring title track leans just as heavily on that bottom end but leavens the proceedings with a particularly angelic lead vocal by Bernard Sumner, who's still able to nail that fallen-innocent tenor, even after all these years. There are moments when the band seem to sit back and reflect on that passage of time -- like "Hey Now What You Doing," which comes across as a sort of primer for wannabe debauchers -- but the most impressive thing about Sirens is the non-jaded attitude at its core. That sparkle, evident in the simply looped "Jetstream" (featuring a guest spot by Ana Matronic of Scissor Sisters), makes this a Siren-inspired trip that's anything but doomed. David Sprague

All Music Guide

When New Order returned in 2001 with their first new record in eight years, the album they created (Get Ready) was given a great deal of leeway by fans (if not critics). Was it original? Not very. Although the band never recycled a riff, many of the songs recalled not just the band's salad days, but often specific performances from '80s touchstones Brotherhood or Low-life. What saved Get Ready from irrelevance was a brace of great songs, a new look at the band as capable rockers, and what's more, that uncanny ability to produce timeless, everfresh recordings. Almost as surprising as that comeback record was its quick follow-up, Waiting for the Sirens' Call, which followed two and a half years later. If New Order's ambition were only to reinforce themselves in their fans' imaginations as members of a working band (à la their contemporaries Echo & the Bunnymen or even Duran Duran, for that matter), then the album is a success. Unfortunately, however, the adjectives that need to be attached to this record -- workmanlike, customary, unembarrassing -- aren't going to make music fans flood the record stores seeking copies. Unaccustomed to needing another album's worth of material so soon, Bernard Sumner quickly showed the effects of writing drought, returning to old musical themes he'd visited (and revisited) before, and writing lyrics that make their 1993 single "Regret" a career classic in comparison. Titling a dramatic rocker "Dracula's Castle" may be perfectly acceptable, but then making explicit mention of that metaphor within a set of clumsy lyrics ("You came in the night and took my heart/to Dracula's castle, in the dark") is taking the easy way out, to say the least. The first single, "Krafty," makes the band's ties to Kraftwerk obvious, but while the German motorische experts manufactured cleverly simplistic productions, they never reached the rudimentary levels of this single. (And they surely knew better than making it sound like they meant it, as Sumner does, with the awful rhyme "But the world is a wonderful place/with mountains, lakes, and the human race.") Even the mainstream dance tracks, "Jetstream" and "Guilt Is a Useless Emotion," evince a cold heartlessness that the band never strayed into during the '80s. If New Order continues making albums every three years instead of every decade, critics will quickly begin to strain for new ways to describe Peter Hook's plangent bass work or Sumner's half-bemused, half-baffled songwriting and vocal delivery. Still, that's nothing compared to what New Order might be reduced to recycling. John Bush

Rolling Stone

Waiting for the Sirens' Call is their best since Technique, taking the "Blue Monday" beat into new wacked-out realms. Rob Sheffield