New Order's Peter Hook has suggested that the band are as good as over, telling Argentinian newspaper Pagina/12 that the Manchester group's recent performance in Buenos Aires' Club Ciudad might turn out to be their last.
Hook's bandmate Stephen Morris was a little more optimistic, though, saying that the band were just going to see what happened.
Morris said:
"We've got seven songs left from Waiting For The Sirens' Call (the band's last LP) and we didn't want to make an album that was the rest of another one. Besides, Waiting For The Sirens' Call wasn't a successful enough record for our label to say, 'Yes! Yes! Yes!', but more like, 'Uhmmm, maybe'. This is strange time to be New Order.
"It was good [in 2005] when everyone was saying we were 'Godlike Geniuses' (the band won said gong at the NME awards) and the fans recognised the band. There are a lot of New Orders around and we're the old guys of the neighbourhood, so we should stop for a while and let them take our place.
"I could say there won't be New Order for a couple of years, but as I said before we're bad at planning things so let's see what happens."
So, have New Order had their time? Have they flogged a dead horse for the past couple of records, or are they still a creative force to be reckoned with? DiScuss, if you like...