Consumer Guide Album

New Order: 1981-1982 [Factus, 1981]
Bargain hunters shouldn't pass up this chance to own "Temptation" plus-four for close to the price of the twelve-inch. But I don't call the twelve-inch "Temptation"/"Hurt" for the same reason I can't remember which of the four is which after playing them all fifteen times. "Temptation" is where Manchester's finest stop hearing ghosts and stake their claim to a danceable pop of unprecedented grimness and power. If it isn't the definition of romantic obsession, it's even richer than I think it is. But it's also the first real song this sharp-cornered sound-and-groove band has ever come up with. B+