By 2013,
Section 25
were an accepted cult favorite (
Factory Records
fans and those nostalgic for "Madchester" were the bulk of their audience) and a veteran post-punk group (having formed in 1977), but look closer and there's a heartwarming, phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes story to be told. The unromantic long and short of it goes that leader
Larry Cassidy
passed away in 2010, six years after his wife/bandmate/lead singer
Jenny
had passed away, and while that all points to the dour,
Joy Division
side of
Factory
where everything seemed doomed or cursed,
the Cassidys
' daughter,
Bethany
, has ushered the group into the more
New Order
, more synth pop side of the
aesthetic with brilliant, bright dance-pop. To be fair, there were previous clues, like the remix album
Retrofit
(2010), a bittersweet effort with
Larry
passing before its completion yet "showing the way" with his re-embracing of the dance beat, along with the masterpiece album
From the Hip
(1984) and the semi-hit "Looking from a Hilltop," which were shiny, dance, and pop, but like everything during the Mach 1 era, almost discreet. The opener here, "World's End," holds that same kind of reserve, floating and dreaming with sequencers set on "soft," but "My Outrage" is identifiable
era, brimming with youth and youthful disdain for crappy boyfriends, all while bleeping and bopping like any happening hipster who is borrowing the best from new wave. Thing is,
is backed by a band whose members were there when the wave really was new, and they're family, with
Vincent Cassidy
and
Joanna Cassidy
joined by longtime
Sectioner
Stephen Stringer
, all of them providing the rock-solid grooves. "Inner Drive" is the cool combination of
Kraftwerk
Ladytron
only a cross-generational group like this could achieve, and if the hooky single "Colour Movement Sex & Violence" didn't fall off
's
Power, Corruption & Lies
, the next best candidate would be
the Killers
'
Day & Age
. Fine songwriting, that kinetic, '80s mix of live and computerized, and a well-designed layout for the album -- closing with one more nod to the past -- make this effort both a time-warping triumph and a stunning rebirth from the band that always deserved better. ~ David Jeffries