Closer (album) by Joy Division

Sadly, this album does not do it for me.

From NoAlarms 5 days ago

The swan song from short-lived post-rock luminaries Joy Division is markedly more finessed and emotionally nuanced than the band's universally hailed debut record, Unknown Pleasures. Closer, their second and concluding collection of music, is a paradigm shifting, soul excursion into the psyche of frontman Ian Curtis during his final days. Due to this saddening alignment of events, the album acts both as a monument of post-rock music but also as a scientific, psychological documentation of a virtuoso battling mortal depression. At times, knowing the events that would unfold, some of Curtis' poetry may be too searing for certain listeners. Rest assured, they can take solace in the transcendent beauty of the music itself.

The LP emerges with Atrocity Exhibition, a tribal tonal shift for the quartet, which features drummer Stephen Morris as the focal point of the track, extending the invitation to the listener as Curtis croons, "This is the way, step inside". Track two features the airy, hissing Isolation during which Bernard Sumner's synthwork fills the sonic space like a gas leak. Cavernous and harrowing, Curtis murmurs, "Surrendered to self preservation, from others who care for themselves, a blindness that touches perfection, but hurts just like anything else." Percussion, as touched upon earlier, is a large component of the album's might. This is showcased astutely on side two opener, Heart and Soul, where Morris' hypnotic drumbeat is pushed to the forefront of the mix as Peter Hook's accordant bassline hovers close behind. Lyrically, Curtis must ponder his sacrificial preference, proclaiming, "Heart and soul, one will burn." The final album track in the band's canon is Decades, an icy, sparkling ode to the destructive nature of trauma and a youth unfulfilled. Synth whirls in tandem with Morris' punctual drum hits create the illusion that time is spiraling away from the narrator with no way to correct the nefarious rotation. Curtis sings, 'Weary inside, now our heart's lost forever, can't replace the fear or the thrill of the chase, each ritual showed up the door for our wanderings, open then shut, then slammed in our face," contextualizing his forlorn disappointment.

Vocalist Ian Curtis wouldn't live to see the release of his final, most significant piece of art. Closer's album cover serves as an eerie testament to what lies between the lines of the poetry confined within. The sense of mourning is thoroughly encapsulated in the black and white starkness of Bernard Pierre Wolf's photo of the Appiani Family Tomb in Genoa. Closer embodies its namesake as a conduit to occupy remarkable proximity to death and emotional turmoil. From the debris left behind from Joy Division's Shakespearian conclusion, a new artistic force was constructed. New Order would go on to have commercial and critical success for two decades, all the while enduring the immense pain of their phantom limb, a fallen brother in arms. Closer is Ian Curtis' gift to the world, in all its shimmering beauty and soul-demolishing despair.

"Now that I've realized how it's all gone wrong,
Gotta find some therapy, this treatment takes too long,
Deep in the heart of where sympathy held sway,
Gotta find my destiny, before it gets too late."

-Twenty Four Hours

Standout Tracks

1. Decades
2. Isolation
3. Twenty Four Hours

96.1

From Timestarter 05/30/2020 01:19

Fav. Tracks: Atrocity Exhibition, Isolation, Twenty Four Hours, The Eternal, Decades.

Great album!

From Montpejo 04/19/2020 17:05

Highlights:

Decades
Isolation
Twenty Four Hours
Atrocity Exhibition
Heart & Soul
A Means To An End

Fantastic.

Post-punk perfection. To me, everything about this album is perfection.

10/10
Favorite songs: Passover, The Eternal, Decades

Favorite Tracks:Atrocity Exhibition

Great album that gets better to the end. Decades feels like a proper farewell to Ian Curtis.

Only got this album in 2018 and such a superb album that for a while it featured in my top 100. I recall them from the time - vaguely - and I loved the song Love Will Tear Us Apart, but I never found space to let them in.
This album is still growing on me and I'm hungry to get more of their stuff.