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Sep 28, 2015This overflows with ideas and intricate synth patterns while maintaining the emotional resonance of the band’s best work.
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Sep 23, 2015Because it’s loaded with guests, there’s a transparent curatorial awareness to Music Complete, one that’s surprisingly engaging and effective.
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Sep 24, 2015New Order have made a really good album, one that easily justifies their soldiering on.
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Sep 18, 2015An album of outstanding pop, shuddering dance-rock and intricate electronic moods.
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Aug 31, 2015Despite two years spent on its dense construction, Music Complete rarely feels stilted, though it could use a stricter edit.... Yet the compensatory highs go beyond expectations. [Oct 2015, p.89]
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Sep 23, 2015It’s the album that New Order fans have been dreaming of for years and it will no doubt be cherished. Even better, you don’t leave this album thinking it’s a good way to go out. For the first time in decades, you leave thinking: what a way to start.
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Oct 21, 2015Bernard Sumner's rhymes are still a bit cutesy and obvious, but, as ever, the same old quibbles take a backseat when the pop is this solid.
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Sep 22, 2015Music Complete certainly doesn’t do anything to diminish New Order’s formidable legacy, but it doesn’t necessarily expand upon it either. That being said, it still sounds like classic New Order.
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Sep 21, 2015There is a spirit of adventure and experimentation in the album that is commendable.
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Q MagazineAug 31, 2015Music Complete is like good architecture: impressive in scale, the layers precisely pitched and the repetition absorbing. [Oct 2015, p.116]
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Sep 11, 2015There are times when Music Complete seems like the result of a newly passionate group’s desire to squeeze a decade-worth of ideas--and another quarter century of influences--onto one album. That said, it’s still their best work since the age of Republic.
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Sep 21, 2015Hook's departure frees them to create their most varied and substantial work in decades.
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Sep 25, 2015Though it’s been said about each of their few-and-far-between albums, it’s actually safe to call Music Complete a comeback.
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Sep 24, 2015Music Complete still feels like the freshest thing they’ve done in ages.
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Sep 23, 2015This is the first New Order album for a long time that sounds like it could only have been made by them.
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Sep 28, 2015It all makes for an unexpectedly coherent return.
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UncutAug 31, 2015It drags and trundles in places, opting for plump maximalism over the lean, urgent minimalism of yesteryear.... All the same, Music Complete is easily New Order's best album since Technique, and probably their most musically diverse ever. [Oct 2015, p.74]
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Sep 24, 2015For the most part, Music Complete is a resounding success. It's an Indian summer of carefree enjoyment and reconnection to what made New Order one of the finest and most innovative bands of the 1980s
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 51 out of 57
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Mixed: 2 out of 57
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Negative: 4 out of 57
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Sep 26, 2015Instantly addictive; the most consistent New Order record in decades. Tight as Technique, dark as Movement, heavy as Get Ready. For a 35 y/o band, WOW
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Sep 26, 2015
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Sep 25, 2015Excellent. That was all I wanted to say but then I had to add another 141 characters before I could submit this review. I am almost there now. Finish.