Closer (studio album) by Joy Division

Is there a more painfully hopeless album? I highly doubt it.

From planetneutral 12/30/2020 17:34

This comment is beneath your viewing threshold.

I absolutely loved their debut so I was really stoked to hear this one. Boy was I disappointed... I don't understand what everyone here is going on about. It's not terrible but it did not live up to the hype for me. Sorry Joy Division fans, I actually really tried to like this.
Twenty Four Hours was a dope track though!

From Brad1770 09/28/2020 04:45

CHRONOLOGY

15/06/79: ‘Unknown Pleasures’ released to critical acclaim

Late 1979 to early 1980: tracks for what would become ‘Closer’ recorded with Martin Hannett once more at the helm

June 1980: none album release “Love Will Tear Us Apart” breaks Joy Division globally & reaching number 3 on the New Zealand album charts of all places

18/05/1980: Ian Curtis sadly passes aged only 23 years old on the eve of the bands maiden US Tour

18/07/1980: ‘Closer’ released posthumously 3 days after what would have be Curtis’s 24th birthday to critical acclaim

AllMusic - 5 Stars

NME - 10/10

Pitchfork- 10/10

Q - 5 Stars

Rolling Stone - 5 Stars

Select - 5/5

Spin - 10/10

Uncut - 5 Stars

Damn straight!! I have nothing more to add

Just a teensy little bit less good than Unknown Pleasures. Fantastic nonetheless. It's a little bit more upbeat than their debut, but it's still infinitely dreary.

Sadly, this album does not do it for me.

From NoAlarms 05/30/2020 23:12

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