New Order's latest offering, Waiting For The Sirens' Call, does not break significant new musical ground for the band. New Order sounds like New Order. Peter Hook's melodic bass lines weave around the hypnotic percussion of drummer Stephen Morris while Bernard Sumner's guitar alternately provides enough abrasion to tear holes in the sonic fabric or enough jangling pop sensibility to piece it back together. Synthesizer melodies and electronic blips supplement the traditional guitar/drum/bass rock without smothering it. Distinctions from New Order's past catalogue can be found, of course. The album's title track, "Waiting For The Sirens' Call", is one of the best New Order songs in recent memory. Unfortunately Waiting For The Sirens’ Call does not have the same overall dynamic urgency that the band’s previous album, 2001’s Get Ready, possessed, but it showcases a similar tendency towards guitar-driven pop over chilly synthesizer numbers. Like the band's other recent albums, this work offers an increasingly poppy side of New Order that carries the band further from the cold chill effectiveness of their early post-Joy Division days. At their best, New Order have crafted some glorious guitar melodies to stand alongside their more popular twelve-inch dance tracks and this album is a celebration of this talent that too often goes unrecognized when the band is alluded to by the masses. The best songs on Waiting For The Sirens' Call show a New Order that still refuses to live in history books.