Album Review

Joy Division – Closer

• 1st Nov 2007

Joy Division recorded only two studio albums Unknown Pleasures (1979) and Closer (1980). Even so Closer is considered an important album in the post-punk era and in 2003 was voted 157th in Rolling Stone’s 500 greatest albums of all time.

On 17th September both were re-issued alongside the posthumous Still. They’ve been re-mastered and come with a live bonus disc recorded at the University of London.

Closer, is an expectedly lugubrious album and experiments more with the use of synthesizers and studio effects than its predecessor. The album is considered to have a funereal feel to it, with the cover art for the album re-iterating this even though it had been chosen by Peter Saville (responsible for the majority of Factory artists’ record sleeves) before he had listened to any of the songs. The photograph on the cover is of the Appiani family tomb in Italy.

The re-issuing of the album coincides with the release of Anton Corbijns film Control, the biopic of Ian Curtis based on the book Touching From A Distance by Curtis’ wife Deborah.