Imagine being saddled with the unenviable task of escaping Ian Curtis's shadow while, at the same time, dealing with the singer's cruel death by his own hand.
It would have been a lot to handle for any band - and one is certain that it was overwhelming at times for the surviving members of Joy Division - but no betting man, woman, or child would have put their money on New Order masterfully morphing into a musical two-headed leviathan by their second album.
That second album, entitled Power, Corruption, and Lies, remains not only the band's cocksure declaration of independence from a darkened past, but also from any preconceptions that might keep the band from forging a new path into a future yet to be written.
Of course, that future didn't just fall out of the sky.
The band not only toured for most of that time following the release of their debut album, Movement, but also had the wherewithal to color completely outside the lines of convention without sacrificing an iota of listenability.
Where Movement was a cold, clanging sheet metal tank of an album, Power, Corruption & Lies, is a warm-blooded entity capable of not only feeling but making the listener experience a myriad of alternating emotions from one song to the next.
In a sense, part of the joy of experiencing this album in its entirety is reveling in the band's own joy in showing you the new musical tricks they'd learned in the eighteen months between albums. In that sense, there is a childlike pride and wonder in the performance of "Age Of Consent" which belies the funereal heaviness of "We All Stand".
It is that pendulum swing of musical extremes from one song to the next that propelled P, C & L and kept our teenage minds engaged, even as some songs reached the six-and-seven-minute mark.
35 years later, the album is still a deeply engaging affair that continues to comfort and amaze.
Wait, did someone just use the word "comfort" in relation to one of the most cutting edge albums of the 1980's?
Yes, I did because listening to the album now is like ripping into a bag of Reese's peanut butter cups and savoring the conflicting flavors. No matter how many times you come back to the album, the juxtaposition of styles - from jangly guitar pop to electronic mood pieces - never ceases to catch the senses off-guard.
Yet the familiarity of Bernard Sumner's plaintive wail, Peter Hook's melodic bass lines, and Stephen Morris's metronomic, yet muscular drumming all combine to create a deeply fulfilling food for the soul.
On Power, Corruption, and Lies, New Order isn't just a synth band who can't leave their guitars alone, they're a pop band creating a template for the modern age that is just as resonant today as when it was first released 35 years ago.
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age of consent