Closer (studio album) by Joy Division

Album Rating: 86.33
(777/9)

18.07.1980

Joy Division (UK): Closer

1.Atrocity Exhibition 83
2.Isolation 84
3.Passover 83
4.Colony 76
5.A Means To An End 84
6.Heart & Soul 81
7.Twenty Four Hours 98
8.The Eternal 90
9.Decades 98

In order of preference:

Joy Division (Closer) - Twenty Four Hours 98

Joy Division (Closer) - Decades 98
Joy Division (Closer) - The Eternal 90
Joy Division (Closer) - A Means To An End 84
Joy Division (Closer) - Isolation 84
Joy Division (Closer) - Atrocity Exhibition 83
Joy Division (Closer) - Passover 83
Joy Division (Closer) - Heart & Soul 81
Joy Division (Closer) - Colony 76

This is my favourite Joy Division album and maybe my favourite album of all time. It's a really dark album but the lyrics and music are beautiful.

From JoaoMoreira 02/09/2024 01:16

Not an easy task to repeat the same instinctive performance of Unknown Pleasures and truly impossible to compare both records.
This one is interesting but clearly not as good.
Sounds like a transitional record so mabye the 3rd one would be a whole new world.
We'll never know ?

The beginning and end of this album is fantastic but the middle part is quite underwhelming especially when comparing it with the phenomenal songs that are present here. Tracks 1-2 start us off with some brilliant lyrics and a truly unnerving atmosphere. This prepares us very well for the style of Joy Division and it always does a great job of making me desperate to hear more of this sound. However, we have to take a brief break before this is satisfied as tracks 3-6 are quite a drag to get through. In my opinion, the more repetitive aspects of these tracks are too prevalent and this leads to the music becoming draining and I find myself becoming fatigued by the end of it. They just don't posses that same dark atmospheric quality that the better songs on here have. We then conclude the album with a phenomenal 3 song stretch that is probably the greatest run they ever made. These tracks are haunting and full of power with The Eternal always impressing me whenever I revisit this release. By the time you reach the end of Decades you feel like you have been on a truly amazing experience and it is what made me fall in love with the group when I first heard them. Overall, this record is unique and has a lot of quality with the bookends of the album being some of the best material they ever released.

One of the best album in history ?? A masterpiece ??

Solid album

This album starts very oddly with Atrocity Exhibition which leaves the dark atmosphere of previous record and replaces it with unsettling one. Then we have very good Isolation and then we get to the weakest part of the album - Passover and Colony - two of my least favorites on the record. A Means To An End is quite underrated track and Heart And Soul finally gets album back to true greatness. Three last tracks are my favorite, they are excellent, especially Twenty Four Hours and Decades. Vibe of this album for me is even more depressing than Unknown Pleasures, but is slithtly less consistent.

Joy division released 2 albums, ian curtis suicide cut of what could have been a top tier band ever at the status of the beatles, led zeppelin or pink floyd, this albums more obscure i think than the debut, awesomeness i always got an incredible emotion hearing it, Decades is one of my favorites songs ever

From AAL2014 07/06/2022 02:51

Personally, I rank Closer ahead of Unknown Pleasures as well, at this moment anyway of course.

This has to be among the greatest works of lyrics ever. Ian Curtis’s story is so truly sad, but one thing that is particularly tough to deal with is that we don’t have 3 decades of work from the guy. But maybe that’s what makes this record so special, that being its authentic, bludgeoning sadness and how close to the end Ian knew he was.

The music throughout Closer is no joke either and to me it’s a much more interesting set of arrangements than their debut too. Some of the playing mixed with the archaic… almost… anti new wave?.. effects are staggering.

This is a masterful album.

I may be in the minority but personally I think this is better than Unknown Pleasures. The production seems to have taken a step forward towards being utterly breathtaking, the way you can hear the sense of space is incredible, close your eyes and you feel like you are within the studio. Every bit of space is accounted for and it makes the record sound massive. On top of that, musically it is outstanding with a greater sense of melodic writing while still staying within the style and sound of the previous record.