Joy Division

"This is the way, step inside": it's with this cryptic invitation that Ian Curtis, who was the voice and soul of Joy Division, welcomes us into the depths of his incurable malaise, his profound unease with himself and the reality around him, inviting us to take part in his final journey, to share with him the diary of his last, definitive reflections. Because "Closer", before being a "dark" or "gothic" record, or however you want to label it, is above all a spiritual testament, the detailed account of the thoughts imprisoning the mind of a twenty-four-year-old who seemed to have already perfectly planned his own end: having taken his own life shortly before the release of this record, the band's second, Ian Curtis had already predicted in his teenage diaries that he didn't "expect to live much beyond the age of twenty": and with the chilling coherence and lucidity that mark all his lyrics, he fulfilled that prophecy just before seeing his band enshrined among rock's greats in the space of only two albums.

For these reasons, "Closer" cannot be spoken of as just another record: its musical greatness, while unquestionable, pales beside the emotions that seep from Ian's words, sung in that unmistakable robotic, monotone, disconsolate voice of his. Bernard Sumner's brilliant guitar, Peter Hook's menacing bass and the insinuating, obsessive rhythms of Stephen Morris's drums give each track a different atmosphere, building increasingly oppressive and funereal soundscapes, but it's Curtis's lyrics and vocals that give the record its singular cohesion and emotional consistency.

The opening "Atrocity Exhibition", inspired by the novel of the same name by James G. Ballard, is perhaps the most macabre and disturbing thing ever produced either by Joy Division or by the wider "dark-punk" movement. Morris drives the track forward with tribal percussion, Hook's bass contorts itself to the point of spasm, and Sumner's guitar pierces through with a rain of searing shards; over all this, Ian's voice declaims, with cold and lucid detachment, the description of a world now irremediably overrun by indifference to violence and moral desolation.

Completely different is "Isolation", almost an anticipation of the neurotic synth-pop that would become the trademark of New Order, the band that the three surviving members of Joy Division would form after Curtis's death: the synthetic, glossy sound of drums and synthesizers is furrowed by Curtis's anxiety, as he remains fully aware of his desperate situation and cries out to be allowed one last glimpse of beauty. "Passover" is a perfect standard of "gothic" rock, with the guitar letting out spectral high notes and the rhythm section holding down a hypnotic, menacing groove; beneath the song's apparent calm, Curtis is actually putting into words his decision to end it all, speaking of "a crisis of the long wait, a standing of the balance sheet, the tape-recorder buzzing... a tightening of the ropes, all the defences that once held solid, torn apart".

The claustrophobic "Colony" once again shows images of a world dominated by indifference and superficiality, in which all feeling has been swept away: from the vantage point of his uncommon sensitivity, his moody temperament, and the physical and psychological suffering caused by what he called "the great illness" (epilepsy), Ian Curtis simply comes to realise that this kind of reality can never bring joy into his life. Not even marriage and a daughter were enough to change his view of the world. This brings us to "A Means To An End", a driving track with the three musicians in perfect balance and rapport with one another, and Ian voicing his total, definitive disillusionment with whatever is left of words like love and friendship.

But the absolute high point of the record, and perhaps of the entire history of dark music, is the triptych "Heart And Soul" - "24 Hours" - "The Eternal". The first is hypnosis in its purest form, driven by a relentless, suffocating rhythm, with the echoes of guitar and voice seeming to rise from the depths of a crypt, immediately calling to mind the record's stunning, funereal cover image. It's also the track that sums up all the themes Curtis had already explored earlier on the album: all his paranoia and depression find their final, conclusive expression here. "24 Hours" is a breathtaking alternation of rhythms and tones that keep accelerating and imploding, matching the increasingly subdued, resigned vocal: a fate of death that already seems to have come to pass in the extraordinary "The Eternal", the album's absolute masterpiece, one of the most beautiful and saddest songs of the past two decades, a funeral march intoned by a piano that seems to weep tears of grief and helplessness, accompanied by distant heartbeats and indistinct noise, with Curtis himself watching the procession with an almost total absence of emotional involvement. A martyrdom that reaches its final station, fading into "Decades", a kind of spectral dance, complete with synthesizer and treated vocals. Curtis closes his journey towards death by observing the younger generations, a category from which he definitively excludes himself.

Not a single ray of light manages to pierce the pitch-black weave of this record: Curtis denies his songs even the faintest hint of hope or comfort, and rightly so: one cannot expect to share in the intimate diary of a person like him, a young man who had condemned himself to a premature death, without coming away shaken to the core, eyes brimming with tears, desperately searching for the way out that Ian Curtis himself never managed to find.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

31/10/2006