Track Listing

1. Fine Time
2. All the Way
3. Love Less
4. Round & Round
5. Guilty Partner
6. Run
7. Mr. Disco
8. Vanishing Point
9. Dream Attack

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47350 in Music
• Released on: 1990-10-25
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com essential recording
Technique is New Order's most fully realized dance album. Although other New Order albums have been mighty danceable, this recording contains a masterful use of the acid-house trends storming the club scene in 1989, when this album was released. New Order embraced the technology that was available at the time but never substituted brilliant song structures with prefabricated formats that sequencers, samplers, and other high-tech noisemakers can easily provide. They intelligently used these devices to incorporate elements of a broader genre beyond the "New Order sound," proving that even while experimenting with musical trends and other fleeting diversions, this accomplished group is capable of pulling off a genre-defining album without ever losing sight of their own identity. --Beth Bessmer

Customer Reviews

Ah, Technique...
There's an awful lot of people out there who share my opinion that this is New Order's finest album, and with good reason. Technique is consistently superb from the first notes of Fine Time through the final fade out of Dream Attack. Its the soundtrack to that summer you've always dreamed of - basking on a sun soaked beach while the warm wind washes over you.

Fine Time starts things out - a slightly strange housy song that is none the less very catchy. "You're much too young - to be a part of me / You're much too young - to mess around with me" Mix in Barry White style deep vocals, Peter Hook's awe inspiring melodic bass, and even sheep sounds, and you've got a winning track that could only have come from New Order. 7.5 / 10

Next up is All The Way - New Order at their most upbeat and a tour de force of song writing prowess. Primarily an acoustic guitar driven number, with a touch of synths, Hook's bass and a very upbeat chorus - "It takes years to find the nerve to be apart from what you've done - to find the truth inside yourself and not depend on anyone". 9/10

The third track, Love Less, kicks things into a slightly lower gear following the high of All The Way. Again, guitar and bass driven, but more downtempo in a way that conveys melancholy without sounding sad as only New Order can. "Can't you see, why don't you look at me? Its not your right to be, so much my enemy..." 8.5 / 10

The most recognizable track on the album is the single Round & Round - simply a terrific track but probably the one track that might not fit in with the others on the album. Pop bliss, with bouncing, bubbly synth work meshing perfectly with Hooky's basslines and some of Bernard's most inspired lyrics. "I don't care about what you do, because if you mess with me I'll get rid of you." and "The picture you see is no portrait of me. Its to real to be shown to someone I don't know." Probably New Order's most overlooked single and one that should have had more chart success than it did. Simply sublime. 9.5 / 10

Guilty Partner takes us past the half way point of the album. Another slightly down tempo track, helping us to catch our breath after the high of Round & Round, subtly driven by Hooky's rather mellow bass playing, building to a gorgeous synth-line crescendo. "I'm not some kind of foolish lover, I couldn't take this from no other! You're not being cruel to me, cause I always know that you'll come back to me..." 8.5 / 10

Run - Starts to ratchet the tempo back up ever so slightly. New Order with an edge. "What the *hell* is happening?" Bernard asks. "I can't think of everything. I don't know what day it is, or who I'm talking to..." 8.5 / 10

Mr. Disco takes us into Technique's fantastic home stretch. "How can I ever forget you? You don't know, just what I've been through..." it starts, as the synths swirl in, out, and around Hooky's bass. "I can't find my piece of mind because I need you with me all of the time..." Orchestra hits and gorgeous synth work round things out. 9/10

Vanishing Point - One of New Order's true masterpieces, and personally one of my top 10 songs of all time. Heavily synth based with a touch of Hooky's bass, the lyrics are once again powerful and raw: "Grow up children, don't you suffer - at the hands of one another" - "My life ain't no holiday, I've been through the point of no return". A truely lush track that could never receive enough accolades. 10 / 10

Dream Attack - Technique closes out with a track that just oozes massive quantities of pure bliss. Guitar and drum based, Hooky's bass in a more traditional role, with electric pianos and synths thrown in for good measure. Things start out with a perfect opening verse "Nothing in this world could touch the music that I heard when I woke up this morning". But the song contains a completely perfect moment shortly thereafter as it hits a piano break with a simply gorgeously stunning melody. Again, one of my personal top 10 tracks of all time. 10 / 10

Get the message
`Technique' is a phenomenal record by a phenomenal band. Eight years and four albums after rising from the ashes of the doom-laden Joy Division, New Order had evolved to create the best electronic rock crossover album that I can think of. Recorded in Ibiza, but charting the disintegration of a relationship, the album is a curious contradiction of infectious beats and wistful lyrics that nevertheless works brilliantly. From the bass-heavy dancefloor sleaze - with a nod to Barry White - of 'Fine Time' through to the euphoric menace of 'Dream Attack', `Technique' is an immaculately cohesive whole with very few weak points - only `Guilty Partner' seems surplus to requirements. All the trademark New Order idiosyncracies are here, Peter Hook's inimitable bass, Bernard Sumner's winsome vocals and a glorious collage of beats, synths and guitars. The highpoint of the album comes with `Run', a gorgeous, acoustic-driven jangle shot through with ragged bursts of electric guitar and ethereal synth. From then on in, `Technique's attack is relentless, the excellent `Mr Disco' and `Vanishing Point' paving the way for the epic closer `Dream Attack'. `Substance' may have all the hits on it, but for 45 minutes of sustained New Order brilliance, no other album can live with `Technique'. Get the message.

New Order's Best Album
New Order had some great albums in the beginning with Power,Corruption and Lies - Lowlife - and Brotherhood, etc, but they were always forging their own way with the childlike guitar playing of Bernard Sumner (per Johnny Marr) and the meandering bass lines of Peter Hook, were always kept in line with the original drums (not drum machines in the beginning) and catchy synth loops - I still love the synthesized croaking frogs on "Thieves Like Us".

1989 was a great year in music. The eighties saw the most different types of new music one could ever dream of, and what better way to finish off the decade than with a masterpiece; Technique - says it all. This is not an album to skip around from track to track looking for a single - the entire album is brilliant from start to finish - which is how it should be listened to. I remember seeing the Technique concert in San Diego, and New Order headlined for the following bands: De La Soul, Sugarcubes, and Public Image Limited. What a show!

Other great albums from that very same year of 1989:

PIL - 9
10000 Maniacs - Blind Man's Zoo
Jimmy Cliff - Cliff Hanger
Pixies - Doolittle
The Cure - Disintegration
The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
XTC - Oranges & Lemons
Peter Murphy - Deep
The Cult - Sonic Temple
They Might Be Giants - Lincoln
The The - Mind Bomb
Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine
Love and Rockets - Love & Rockets
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Mother's Milk
Depeche Mode - 101 Live
De La Soul - 3 Feet High and Rising
Sugarcubes - Here Today, Tomorrow Next Week!
Soul II Soul - Club Classics Vol. 1/Keep On Movin'

I'd be lucky to be able to think of this many good albums from all of the 90's combined.