The Human Touch

By Guy Garcia

PERFORMER: NEW ORDER

ALBUM: REPUBLIC

LABEL: QWEST/WARNER

THE BOTTOM LINE: After four years of solo dispersal, New Order regroups for an album of compassionate dance pop.

New Order, the shadowy British syntho-dance band, has always reveled in its contradictions. By melding the nihilistic mettle of punk with microchip magic and a populist disco beat, it has sold millions of records without losing its elitist mystique. Progressive dance-floor hits like 1983's Blue Monday made it possible to be cool while working up a sweat and anticipated the techno- industrial revolution, paving the way for groundbreaking groups such as Happy Mondays and Jesus Jones.

New Order's cult status has roots in the mid-'70s, when three of its members were part of Joy Division, an English quartet whose name belied its obsession with the darker side of reality. When Joy Division's leader, Ian Curtis, committed suicide in 1980, the survivors formed New Order, which quickly established its trademark mix of emotionally opaque lyrics, high-tech smarts and hypnotic dance grooves.

Instead of embracing success, however, New Order hid its face behind abstract or monochromatic album covers and performed entire concerts without ever addressing the audience. The cult grew. After the release of 1989's Technique, the band dispersed into various spin-off acts, most notably Electronic, which was fronted by singer Bernard Sumner and former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr.

Reunited for Republic, its first studio effort in four years, New Order has not so much progressed as consolidated. Time and success seem to have brought the band out of its hermetic shell and into a bigger, if not always brighter, dimension. The new songs still seethe with catchy keyboard and guitar hooks and foot-happy beats; even the slower numbers are propelled by a steady rhythmic pulse. But the narcissistic intensity of the lyrics has evolved into a more compassionate outlook.

Sumner's vocals have become more relaxed, conveying conflicting shades of emotion. On World, he sounds almost wistful as he sings, "It may well be too late/ But I've no passion for this hate." On Special, the band's acerbic side surfaces briefly as Sumner sneers, "It was so special/ It was like water down the drain."

Republic's worldly concerns are reflected in the album's cover art, which juxtaposes two contradictory images. One half shows a handsome young couple frolicking on a sun-washed beach; the other, buildings burning in a hellish conflagration. This pairing could represent anything from an ecological warning to a meditation on the fleeting nature of happiness. Either way, it shows New Order is willing to raise issues that go a lot deeper than the next dance-club craze. The sustained, chillingly solitary note that ends the album is mitigated by Sumner's impassioned exhortation to feel. After years of mining the bleak landscape of alienation, New Order seems to have discovered the value of its own humanity.