88 MPH: Out With The Old, In With The New (Order)

posted in: Features • Rock

Musicians often boast that their endeavors amount to a “labor of love,” but for no band is this sentiment more accurate than for Massachusetts electropop outfit Passion Pit. The group began as just one musician, singer Michael Angelakos, who recorded a few songs as a Valentine’s Day present for his college girlfriend. Angelakos’ songs began to circulate among his Emerson College classmates, and he quickly attracted a wider following of Boston-area music lovers. Soon, he found himself collaborating with a group of students from Berklee College of Music who helped flesh out his electronic sound with a full band. After New York label Frenchkiss re-released Angelakos’ original songs as the Chunk of Change EP, the band went on to record their debut LP, Manners, a critically-lauded shimmering dose of synthpop heavily indebted to British act New Order.

After the suicide of vocalist Ian Curtis, the three remaining members of Joy Division” guitarist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook and drummer Stephen Morris”turned tragedy into opportunity by reforming in 1981 as the appropriately-named New Order. With the addition of keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, the band began to forge their new sound and identity. Though New Order’s earliest songs sounded much like B-sides from a Joy Division record, the group gradually brought Gilbert’s synth to the forefront of the mix. This change resulted in songs like “Blue Monday” and “Bizarre Love Triangle,” which would become some of the band’s most enduring hits. Though the group continued to write and record through the ’90s and early 2000s, the snuffed-out flame that was Joy Division still trumped New Order in the collective imagination of music fans. Just like the legends of other rock stars who live fast and die young, the stories that formed around Curtis and Joy Division’s brief existence unfortunately eclipsed New Order’s quality musical output.

During the first decade of the 2000s, Joy Division was one of the most cited influences among indie rock buzz bands such as mope rockers Interpol. With the deck fairly stacked against New Order, it took a truly hype-worthy act to resurrect their synthpop legacy. Enter Passion Pit. “Eyes As Candles,” a cut from the band’s debut full-length Manners shares a few key characteristics with New Order’s “Thieves Like Us” (above). Not only do both songs begin with a driving solo drum beat that launches into a blast of synth pad, they both combine electronic sounds with traditional rock instruments. The bass line that takes over during the verse of “Eyes As Candles” parallels Sumner’s dark lead guitar riffs that lead into the verse of “Thieves Like Us.” Listening to Passion Pit, it’s obvious that New Order has a substantial influence on the new wave of bands that incorporate electronic sounds into their traditional rock band setup. Even though New Order were never as characteristically hip as Joy Division, with buzz bands like Passion Pit harkening back to their synth-heavy sound, it’s obvious that new indie rock bands are still doing what they do best: making the un-hip hip again.