I love Joy Division's era defining debut, Unknown Pleasures, but it is only recently that I have been properly listening to their follow up, Closer, and some of their other one off singles and compilation tracks. I have listened to Closer before recently, but only really straight after Unknown Pleasures, and never really paying much attention to it, as I was always doing something while it was on. So I have been listening to it a lot over the past few weeks, giving it more attention, and for a long while it just wasn't clicking and I didn't know why. It doesn't sound all that different from Unknown Pleasures (a few lighter, more new-wavey moments scatter the tracklist but its not a drastic shift); and it still has Ian Curtis' twisted and tortured lyrics on top. I just always ended up drifting during the middle of the record, but it was never on the same track so I couldn't just assume that there was just a track that wasn't working. It was only when I once again had it on in the background while doing some housework where it really clicked and I found myself really enjoying the record.
The album opens with Atrocity Exhibition, a track very different to Unknown Pleasures' sound. It has these thunderous drums and wild, noisy guitar screeching at the top of the mix. Curtis sings about the Victorian insane asylums that were used as tourist attractions as if he is a circus ringmaster. The whole thing feels dripping with satire and subtext. The next track, Isolation, has these glittering synth lines dancing across the track, completely juxtaposed with Curtis' dark lyrics about feeling so alone in the world and the shame he feels about his epilepsy. From here on out the album just gets darker and more depressed. You can tell from Ian Curtis' haunted lyrics and vocals that he was really on the end of his tether at this point, so close to the end of his life. A Means to an End seethes of betrayal as Curtis sings "I put my trust in you", and Heart and Soul sees him completely hopeless. Twenty Four Hours builds into an intense frenzy, with the last verse in particular feeling very suicidal. The last line of this track is "Gotta find my destiny, before it gets too late.", before the gothic The Eternal begins. This long, slow track feels like Curtis has almost burned himself out, becoming this passive, spectral voice floating in the fog of the instrumentation. The closer, Decades, brings back some colour with the more saturated bass and synths sounding like accordion. leaving the album with some sembilance of hope as it finishes.
While I still prefer Unknown Pleasures for its knife-edge tension and atmosphere, I have really started to come round on this record. It contains some of the bands darkest moments and shows signs of where the group would go as New Order after Curtis' passing. It's not accessible music and it's not meant to be, but is deeply rewarding once you get invested.
Top Tracks: Atrocity Exhibition, Isolation, A Means to an End, Heart and Soul, Twenty Four Hours, The Eternal, Decades
8/10
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