New Order recall poor quality reissues

New Order have announced that they will reissue their latest reissues, after complaints over their sound quality. People who have already purchased collector edition copies of the band's first five albums will be able to exchange these for the new versions – that is, if they even noticed the problems.

"Warner Bros UK, Rhino and New Order regret that the initial pressings of the collector editions of Movement, Power, Corruption & Lies, Low Life, Brotherhood and Technique contain some minor audio problems on the bonus discs," yesterday's statement announced. "We are now in the process of correcting the problems, but it should be noted that due to the age and condition of some of the original source tapes, the sound quality may vary."

Though the albums were released in the UK last month, fan furore over sound quality only won a response after the US release this week. And despite fans' loud online complaints, major publications like Q, Mojo and Pitchfork didn't seem to notice the sound issues in their reviews.

Then again, New Order bassist Peter Hook did. "This is a very difficult one," he wrote on his MySpace blog. "We are aware of the problems and because we did not have finished product to listen to [before-hand] it has, shall we say ... slipped through the net?"

Hook went on to promise that his "great friend" and New Order biographer Claude Flowers would "sort this mess out personally".

New Order's collector edition reissues each include a bonus disc of B-sides, instrumentals, remixes and rarities. It's mostly these tracks that aroused listeners' ire, with fans documenting as many as 300 errors. Pops and crackles on the recordings suggested that the songs were transferred from commercially available vinyl recordings – the same ones many fans already own - rather than coming from original master tapes.