Closer

Description

Joy DivisionCloseron 180g LP

Postpunk pioneersJoy Divisionleft an indelible mark on Manchesters burgeoning music scene in the late 1970s. Where punks, armed with anger and adrenaline, reconfigured rock by employing its most primal qualities, the postpunks dealt in dissonance, inverted sonic balances, and introspective lyrics. Producing a legacy perhaps larger than their own output,Joy Divisionlasted little more than three years and recorded only two studio albums, but the poignancy and sheer originality of their music have ensured their essential status in rocks pantheon.
35 years ago,Joy Divisionissued their second studio effort,Closer(1980), another seminal post-punk masterpiece which exactly two months earlier had already secured its position as their final album, due to frontman Ian Curtiss suicide.Closeris an album which is effectively impossible to listen to without considering the circumstances under which it was ultimately released, i.e. posthumously, but that doesnt mean it isnt still a classic in its own right.
Musically and lyrically driven by the prevailing despair of Curtis,Closerwas once again produced byMartin Hannett, who also helmed the group’s debutUnknown Pleasures, and he and the band weave sprawling emotional chaos and shifting atmospheres and textures together here into an enormously powerful ten-song tour de force. Standouts include “Heart And Soul,” “Isolation,” “Eternal,” “Decades,” and the wrenching “Twenty Four Hours.”
Joy DivisionCloserTrack Listing:
1. Atrocity Exhibition2. Isolation3. Passover4. Colony5. A Means To An End6. Heart And Soul7. Twenty Four Hours8. The Eternal9. Decades