One of the early bands associated with Factory Records, Section 25 never quite got the recognition that their peers did, and unfairly so. Their sound captured the zeitgeist of that early era just as effectively as Joy Division or A Certain Ratio, but they never seemed to set the world on fire quite the same. Coinciding with their "reunion" album, last year's Part-Primitiv, LTM has reissued early S25 material, including this first "best of" compilation, spanning their entire 30-year career.
Early tracks "Knew Noise" and "Dirty Disco" places them squarely in league with a non-Factory band, Public Image Ltd's contemporaneous Metal Box in its razor sharp disco beat, rumbling dubby bass and raw guitar. Other tracks from this era might have a similar pallet being drawn from, but the result is different: the sprawling "New Horizon" is more enigmatic and isolated feeling than the more caustic dubby stuff. Being that they were Factory recording artists, the reverb heavy hand of Martin Hannett is obvious at times, bringing early tracks such as "Haunted" into the realms of Unknown Pleasures via mania inducing echos and walls of reverberation.
Although ostensibly always a danceable band, given the hard hitting rhythms that would function quite well on a dance floor, around the time of "Sakura" the style got a bit more blatant: the rapid arpeggiated synthesizer and tribal percussion leans it even more towards dance music than before, but in a much different way than how New Order were implementing synths at the time. "Warhead" and "Looking From A Hilltop" (the latter as a 12" Mix) are much more blatant stabs at the then-new synth pop movement, the latter especially apes folks like the Human League at their best.
The tracks from the era are indicative of the time period: the synth heavy production now sounds dated and perhaps not as timeless as the earlier tracks, but the earworm rhythms and melodies are unavoidable and surpass the then trendy production techniques and instrumentation. Two tracks from the Past-Primitiv album appear here as well, the upbeat, almost 1980s revival, of "Power Base," which is as memorable as any of their dancier work but modernized in a way that will satisfy those who are both nostalgic for the early days and those revivalist hipsters that seem to be growing in number (DFA, I'm looking at you). "Winterland II" is a different beast, waltz type synth and rhythms meshed with dissonant rock elements in a unique, interesting way.
A few low points are notable, however. The 12" mix of "Beating Heart" sounds almost too much like something left off of New Order's Movement, which might very well be the fault of producer Barney Sumner. The production also is far too tinny and reverb heavy, as if Sumner tried to do his own Martin Hannett imitation and was not successful. The closer "Knew Noise (Lounge Version)" is exactly what it sounds like: female lounge vocals, piano, and a thunderstorm background. It's an interesting concept, but when placed on the same disc as the thumping original, it feels closer to a joke that didn't need to be told.
Personally, I always have mixed feelings about these "best of" type releases: as someone more obsessive than the "average" music fan, I always feel a bit slighted being told what is someone else's perspective of a band's top releases, and I'd rather just seek out all of the original material myself to make my own decisions. I realize that I am not the average listener though, and given that Section 25 has been recently reawakened and entering a new period of productivity, it is the perfect time for such a collection to be released and to expose a new generation of people to this band that didn't quite receive the same level of attention through the ages as their contemporaries.
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