LP, 180g
Factory – FACT. 25R (2015) EU
35 years ago, Joy Division issued 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 Curtis’s suicide. Closer is an album which is effectively impossible to listen to without considering the circumstances under which it was ultimately released, i.e. posthumously, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still a classic in its own right.
Musically and lyrically driven by the prevailing despair of Curtis, Closer was once again produced by Martin Hannett, who also helmed the group's debut Unknown 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."