New Order apparently made good use of their eight years off between career-worst record Republic and not-career-worst record Get Ready. I mean, I don’t want to overstate it: Get Ready isn’t a great record, and it’s probably their second-worst. But it’s at least “good,” which is something I can’t quite muster up the fortitude to say of Republic.

Part of its edge over Republic might have to do with how it was released in 2001 as opposed to 1993, making its still relatively uninspired beats not quite as dated-sounding as Republic‘s by virtue of being eight years younger. That’s not to say that Get Ready doesn’t have plenty of artifacts of its time, just that those artifacts aren’t quite as glaring as, say, a tepid alt-rock/rap crossover. Most significant to Get Ready‘s sound is the fact that in the interim between ’93 and ’01, Britpop happened, and New Order seems to have embraced that movement in several aspects of this record, from the nasally, more overtly British vocals to the more muscular guitar sounds and stadium-swinging, anthemic songwriting. At its best (“Crystal,” “Primitive Notion,” “Run Wild”), this yields for some of the more melodic, hummable tunes in several New Order releases; at its worst (“Turn My Way,” for one), we’re at least still left with something mildly pleasant. None of this is cutting-edge: by 2001, Blur had left its ’90s sound, and both Be Here Now and Kid A had come to slam the door on Britpop (and if you needed more proof, in 2001, Oasis was working on Heathen Chemistry, which… yeah). But given that Britpop was a nostalgic enterprise to begin with and not so reliant on the march of technology as dance music, Get Ready doesn’t feel nearly as musty as it maybe should.

If all we get from New Order from hereon out are solid, if unremarkable records like this one, I guess that’s fine, but I can’t help but feel a little bit disappointed that their descent into so-so alt-rock elder statesmen happened so precipitously.