For two teenage misfits in the late 70’s world of prog-rock and early-onset punk, it’s probably safe to say that the duo primarily consisting Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark didn’t anticipate, 45 years later, they’d be regarded to the British electronic scene what fellow Liverpudlians, the Beatles were to pop music just under two decades earlier.

The OMD journey began with Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys love of something distinctly electronic and European, in the form of Kraftwerk. Having no belief that their spare-room experiments with cannibalised radios, a mail-order synth and a tape machine on drums (known as Winston) would go further than one or two gigs at the local Eric’s club, they picked the ubiquitous name of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. 

Their career can be split into three stories – the initial rise and fall from 1980 until 1989, when Humphreys along with later bandmates Martin Cooper and Mal Holmes left to form their own band, the short-lived Listening Pool, exhausted of the rigmarole of increasing commercial demands and a poorly compensating record deal. 

The second, while Andy McCluskey made three more albums under the OMD name between 1991 and 1996 before calling it a day, feeling that in a world of Britpop, the world had moved on from the OMD style. 

In 2006, after multiple lawyer arguments and a growing distance between Humphreys and McCluskey later, the duo reformed, initially to perform for a European TV show. That set-in store the third chapter of the OMD story, which, out of a desire to not be a tribute act to themselves, spawned 2010’s History of Modern, 2013’s English Electric, 2017’s The Punishment of Luxury and now, in 2023, their latest effort, titled Bauhaus Staircase. 

It is often said that a band struggles to stay sounding fresh after 10 years in many cases, but somehow OMD manage it after 45. Bauhaus Staircase, comprising in parts of material left unfinished previously and since forgotten about as well as new writing. 

If we were to compare this album to any from their back catalogue, it would best be described as a child between History of Modern and Punishment of Luxury. The tempo across the album ranges from the high-tempo and frenetic tracks, the Computer World era Kraftwerk-esque Anthropocene and Kleptocracy to the much slower, reflective Veruschka, inspired by art noir films. The title track, Bauhaus Staircase is a thrill to the ears, while in Slow Train, it is very much OMD meets Goldfrapp.  This is an album that excites, educates and brings mindful jollification across its 42-minute runtime. 

OMD have said this album might be their last, and they’d be fine with that if it was. It is worth noting they said the same about their previous album prior to McCluskey ‘rediscovering the creative art of boredom’ during the coronavirus lockdowns of 2020, writing the tracks that became the album released before us today. 

If it is their last, Bauhaus Staircase is certainly a good bookmark to end it on, although the band show no intention of stopping performing altogether anytime soon. However, you cannot escape the sense that this is still a band with a lot of relevance, things to say and plenty of creativity in which to do it. To quote the title of one of the tracks comprising this genuinely outstanding album, we say to OMD, ‘Don't Go'.