New Order has come back to claim the mantle of originators of the style they single handedly created. In the ten years since their last album the electronic dance music genre has taken most of the elements of their classic recordings brought them into the future. The new album “Music Complete” has a blend of rock and dance music that acknowledges their past and competes on equal footing with the younger bands fusing these styles today.

The most notable difference in the band’s current lineup is the absence, for the first time, of founding member and bassist Peter Hook.  His sound is essential to what makes New Order, New Order but new bassist Tom Chapman rises to the comparison and manages to keep the band’s signature sound intact without downright copying Hook.

Original keyboardist Gillian Gilbert is back for the first time since 2001 and her interaction with Bernard Sumner’s guitar and vocals is what drives this rebirth of new order’s brand.

Guest appearances by Iggy Pop and Brandon Flowers of the Killers make for interesting tangents and along with the appearance of one of the Chemical Brothers seems like a tribute to New Order’s influence on them and not the other way around.

Just as they unexpectedly rose from the tragic end of Joy Division back in 1980, on "Music Complete" New Order brings the same kind of shocking elation to this late career masterpiece.

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