Bad Lieutenant
I’m going to part ways with my esteemed colleague Keath on this Bad Lieutenant song. While I’m still rather divided on how I feel about Bernard & Stephen carrying on without Hooky, at least they aren’t calling it New Order (as it seemed they might at one point). And it’s certainly not the first time former New Order members have carried on in a new incarnation (Electronic, Revenge).
So how does this new incarnation (which includes Alex James of Blur) fare? Not bad, really. I like the alt-country guitar sound and stripped back arrangement. Though like Keath, I’m wondering where exactly Alex James is in this. Maybe it’s just the mp3, but I don’t hear his signature sexy, slinky basslines. But overall, I could see myself listening to this in the future. Sure, it’s no ‘Crystal’, but it also isn’t ‘Rock The Shack’, if ya know whadda mean. I’ll put it this way, the chances of me playing Bad Lieutenant are far higher than those of me playing Freebass, based on the currently released output of the two.
At least Peter has kept his signature sense of humor throughout. He recently compared the release of Bad Lieutenant’s debut and that of his band Freebass to ‘a fat version of Blur vs Oasis’.
UK TOUR DATES:
Oct 20 – Brighton @ Digital
Oct 21 – London @ Heaven
Oct 22 – Manchester @ Ritz
Tags: bad lieutenant, electronic, freebass, new order, peter hook, revenge
Maybe we’re being deceived by the press on this. Approaching Bad Lieutenant as another Electronic is entirely different than approaching it as New Order v2.0 (of Joy Division v3.0). It’s possible Bernard and Stephen are considering this an entirely different entity. The press, however, are intent on portraying BL as “New Order without Hooky,” which, of course, is much more interesting and sells more papers. So maybe I’m being overly apt to think the worst. Having Bernard and Hooky snipe at each other in articles definitely isn’t helping to establish BL as something unique upon itself.
Too difficult to call on one song, methinks. The album should be a good indicator.
And, yes, Hooky’s solo work has never been that engaging.
That one Revenge song was pretty good, though.