And the award for worst New Order album artwork goes to… well, it probably still goes to Republic, but Waiting For the Siren’s Call‘s cover is doing it no favors. Fortunately, the rest of the album is more Get Ready than Republic, which means that it’s merely pretty good as opposed to actively boring.

I probably prefer Get Ready to Waiting, but the two are at least partially cut from the same cloth: both much more indebted to Britpop and classic rock guitars than, say, acid house. Songs like “Who’s Joe?” (surely an allusion to “Hey Joe,” made famous by Jimi Hendrix, which itself feels significant for the Britpop signifiers at play in this stage of New Order’s career)  and especially “Hey Now What You Doing,” the opening two tracks, all have that big, arena-ready sound that mixes the guitars and the vocals loud and foreground melody over groove. The record’s first half feels very much the sequel to Get Ready, all heroic chords and choruses.

The record’s second half does gesture back toward classic New Order, though. The beats and synths are back, as are the more abstract song structures and mixing. “I Told You So” is a nice groove in the style of New Order’s late-’80s work, and “Turn”‘s simpler dance approach feels like an even older New Order throwback, maybe to the Power, Corruption & Lies era. It’s not Technique or anything, but it’s the closest we’ve gotten to ’80s New Order since the ’80s, and I’ll welcome it.

It all comes full circle with the closer, though, which sets us very firmly back in British rock territory: with a few tweaks to the production, “Working Overtime” could have been either a lost Rolling Stones songs from the mid-’60s or an Oasis B-side from the Definitely Maybe era. The song, along with most of the album, is fun, but (again, as is the case with the album as a whole) it does kind of just leave me wishing that it were just a little more than just “fun.” I mean, if they’re going to recall the prime periods of not just New Order but also Oasis and the Stones, I do wish they’d give us something memorable.

That’s not quite fair. Waiting For the Siren’s Call is a solid album, and maybe it’s just suffering from my having experienced the whole trajectory of New Order’s career in the span of a handful of weeks rather than a couple decades. Still, I’m struggling to find much enthusiasm for this one.