I was a huge fan of Joy Division and Public Image Limited in that time, and still love them. That said. I am a New Order fan. I was of the few in San Francisco that saw them at the I-Beam on the first sans Ian tour. They were touching. That said.
Strip them of their history and take this album as it is for the time it was released and even today, and still it holds as a very good set of songs about stretching across a blackened musical landscape of minor chords and sketchy guitar with guilt ridden vocals and the occasional dance-trippy melodies. Movement is a musical statement. It shows the now and the where to go of the later masterpiece, Power, Corruption And Lies. Movement is a gloomy record, but that's ok, the dark wave really did rejoice in it's melancholy and of course in it's layered sounds. Put this album next to PIL Metal BOX and Echo and the Bunneymens Heaven Up Here and you have a couple of dreamy hours into the netherlands of what was to become of Manchester and American Brit rock idolators. Great stuff, and a wonderful clarion call to what was to become the makings of the greatest dance single of all time from the darkness of Dreams Never End: Blue Monday. After the regrettabel suicide of Ian Curtis, who I hope has found some new incarntion better fitted to his damaged soul, New Order lifted spirits rathers than dampened them.

Everyone knows the story, Curtis kills himself, Joy Division crumbles and reforms as New Order and their guitarist Bernard Sumner takes lead vocals and they pick up some hot chick to play guitar for them. This album sort of picks up where Closer left off, except it's a far cry quality wise. The funny thing about this album is that the two songs sung by bassist Peter Hook are the best of the album, they are "Dreams Never End" and "Doubts Even Here". This may be because Hook is better at mimicking than Sumner is, but it's probably because they're the most catchy. Sumner's vocals are pretty weak, shoddy attempt to do an Ian Curtis impression, the singer of A Certain Ratio is more convincing than this. Part of what made Curtis's depressing, angsty songs work because he was a great songwriter, New Order trying to mimick Curtis's writing style is not going to create masterful songs, as shown on this album. The two songs I mentioned previously are very good though, definately among New Order's best. Except for "I.C.B" and the two tracks the rest of the tracks are pretty much shoddy. What's funny is at this time they had already released superior songs on singles such as "In A Lonely Place" and the amazing "Ceremony", so why not put them on the album, who knows? New Order were showing some promise on this album, and things would get a whole lot better.

This first album released by New Order in 1981 is a wonderful gloomy taste of sturm und drang, echoing out of poignantly scattered debris of Ian Curtis' suicide. This gloomy, artsy, beautifully dark album seems like it comes from the hauntingly hope-devoid streets of Manchester which wrought this foundational New Wave band. Excellent album: dark bored vocals, beautifully woven guitars, haunting synths.

Despite the often inferior lyrics and the regrettable Joy Division parody - Doubts Even Here, Movement contains some of the most brilliant music from the early 80s. Some songs are just stellar. Truth and Senses are flawless. I suppose this music is early electronica in places.

Curtis' vocals - the emotional depth he was able to bring to Closer - obviously couldn't be duplicated, although it sounds like the band is trying. Yet, there is a mechanical-computerized element in much of Movement that predates Blue Monday and which works quite well. Clearly, with the Bauhaus cover art and album title, New Order isn't just trying to recreate Joy Division. Even that exercise did yield good fruit, though. The song In a Lonely Place is great (the b-side for the band's first single).

Dreams Never End is similar to the original FAC 33 release of Ceremony. Both are excellent. (I prefer the original Ceremony to the version on Substance.)

They might have goofed in front-loading their debut with the sprightly, catchy 'Dreams Never End'- -the rest of the album is pretty dour and a bit of a letdown after such an auspicious beginning. It seems they couldn't make up their collective mind as to direction: hence 'Dreams', which sounds like a hit single and, remarkably, like nothing in the Joy Division canon; the haunting 'Doubts Even Here', ostensibly the sequel to both 'Atmosphere' and 'In A Lonely Place'; and the sequencer-driven 'Chosen Time' which anticipates the follow-up POWER, CORRUPTION AND LIES and the direction the band would persue throughout the 80s. Not surprising, really, as much of the material was probably written as Joy Division while Ian Curtis was alive and had to be finished without him. ('Ceremony', the debut single, was performed live with Curtis on JD's STILL.) A hint of cynicism concerning the band's audience pervades the album as well, though- -the vocals are treated in more than a few spots so as to mimic Curtis, most notably on 'Dreams Never End' and 'Doubts Even Here' in which Ian's ghost seemingly performs. The band was definitely haunted by Curtis' absence: his presence permeates the album. There are some great moments, to be sure- -aside from 'Dreams Never End', 'ICB' lopes merrily along and manages to transcend its own weight with its whoopy synth calls and ascending progression. And 'Doubts Even Here' is darkly beautiful. It's also rather aptly titled- -IS that Curtis? It isn't, but I'm not really sure it's Bernard Sumner, either. Or Peter Hook, for that matter. That's the thing about ghosts. They're there but they're not.