Forty years ago today — 29 September 1986 — Factory Records put out New Order's fourth album, Brotherhood (FACT 150). It is the one with guitars leaning one way and sequencers the other, the one that slipped Bizarre Love Triangle into living rooms that had never heard of Hacienda closing time, and the one whose Peter Saville sleeve looks like a sheet of industrial metal because, on the early copies, that is more or less what it was.
If you are digging for New Order on vinyl in 2026, Brotherhood still teaches the split: half rock group, half dance act, neither half apologising.
What is New Order's Brotherhood?
Brotherhood is nine tracks, just over 37 minutes, produced by the band and released on Factory in the UK as FACT 150. Side A is the guitar-led half — Paradise, Weirdo, As It Is When It Was, Broken Promise, Way Of Life. Side B opens the electronics — Bizarre Love Triangle, All Day Long, Angel Dust, Every Little Counts.
That split was deliberate. New Order have said as much over the years: the record was built so each side had a character. You can drop the needle on A and get the rock band that grew out of Joy Division; flip it for the club-ready New Order that was about to dominate the late eighties. CD editions later added State Of The Nation, which had already appeared as a single just before the album.
Studios listed on the original sleeve include Jam in London, Windmill Lane in Dublin and Amazon in Liverpool — a proper touring-band itinerary rather than one cosy room.
Bizarre Love Triangle and the singles around it
Bizarre Love Triangle is the song most people know from the album. Factory released it as FAC 163 on 3 November 1986, after the LP. It became New Order's breakthrough in the United States and Australia, which is why American buyers often meet Brotherhood through that track first.
A few weeks earlier, on 15 September 1986, Factory had already put out State Of The Nation. On many CD versions of Brotherhood it sits as a bonus; on the original UK vinyl it is not on the nine-track LP at all. That is worth knowing when a seller shrugs and says "the album version" of a song that was never on the UK FACT 150 sides.
The FACT 150 sleeve and the metallic first edition
Peter Saville's sleeve is a photograph of titanium–zinc alloy — the kind of cold, industrial surface Factory loved. Some early UK copies came in a proper metallic sleeve; most of what you will find now is the printed photograph of that surface, which is still the look everyone recognises. Look for "ZINK" on the artwork and you are in the right neighbourhood.
Original UK pressings were cut at Townhouse and pressed by MPO. The run-out etchings are a collector's friend:
- Side A: See An Old Soldier Right
- Side B: More Juice Please
Factory's own discography notes an A1X/B1X metallic first edition and an A1/B1 second edition with "86-9" in the deadwax. If you are hunting an original FACT 150, those phrases and the Townhouse stamp matter more than a vague "1986 UK" claim in a listing title.
How to spot a UK Brotherhood worth buying
A sensible checklist when a copy of Brotherhood turns up:
- Catalogue number — FACT 150 on the sleeve and labels for the UK Factory LP. FACD 150 is the CD; FACT 150C the cassette.
- Inner — original copies came with a thick cardboard credits inner. Missing inners are common; price and grade should reflect that.
- Deadwax — Townhouse, MPO, and those two etchings. Variants exist (A1/B1, A1X/B1X); all are legitimate UK paths, but they help you tell a period pressing from a later reissue.
- Sleeve type — metallic first edition versus printed photo sleeve. Both are real; the metallic one is the scarcer early story.
- Condition, honestly graded — New Order sleeves show ring wear and seam splits easily. As we explain in vinyl grading explained, VG and VG+ are still perfectly playable copies when the grade is honest.
We are not going to invent Discogs medians for you. Values move. What does not move is the difference between a period Factory pressing and a later repress with none of the above.
New Order (and friends) in the WholelottaVinyl crates
We do not always have a FACT 150 sitting on the shelf the day you look — Factory LPs of this vintage get snapped up — but New Order 12-inches and the wider late-seventies/eighties electronic crate are regular visitors here in Mansfield.
In stock as we write:
- New Order – Thieves Like Us 12" (FAC 103, 1984), graded VG/VG, £10 — a Factory 12" from two years before Brotherhood, the era when the 12" was the point of the band as much as the LP.
- New Order – England Remix 12" (FAC 293, 1990), graded VG/G+, £10 — later Factory catalogue, still the same shop habit: hand-graded, photographed as the actual copy.
If you are building the electronic shelf around New Order, these are in the crates today too:
- Kraftwerk – The Model 7" (EMI 5207), VG+/VG+, £2
- Depeche Mode – People Are People 7" (7BONG5), VG+/VG+, £2
- Depeche Mode – New Life 7" (Mute 014), VG+/VG, £2
- The Human League – Open Your Heart 12" (VS453-12), VG/VG, £5
- Ultravox – Vienna LP (CHR 1296), VG+/VG+, £5
Every copy is graded by hand and cleaned before it goes out — the same approach we describe in why choose us. If you want a Degritter ultrasonic clean on top, that add-on is on the cleaning service page.
Where Brotherhood sits in the New Order run
On the Factory LP ladder it sits between Low-Life (FACT 100, 1985) and the Substance singles compilation (FACT 200, 1987). Before it: Movement and Power, Corruption & Lies. Brotherhood is the hinge — after it, Substance packaged the 12" era for everyone who had missed those singles the first time round.
A note if you are clearing a Factory shelf
If Brotherhood, a stack of FAC 12-inches or a wider Factory/Mute/Rough Trade collection is sitting in a loft and you would rather it went to people who will play it, we buy vinyl collections in the UK. Start at sell your vinyl records or get in touch — tell us what you have, and we will take it from there. No invented offers here; just the same honest grading we use on the shop floor.
Dig the crates
Forty years on, Brotherhood still rewards a careful UK pressing and a clean stylus. Whether you are hunting FACT 150 itself or filling the gaps with New Order 12-inches and the electronic neighbours beside them, have a dig through the shop. First dibs go to whoever is browsing when the next Factory parcel lands.