Track Listing

1. Heart And Soul
2. Twenty Four Hours
3. Eternal
4. Decades
5. Atrocity Exhibition
6. Isolation
7. Passover
8. Colony
9. Means To An End

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1678 in Music
• Released on: 2006-04-12
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
In retrospect, Closer, the second and final album by this Mancunian band, seems to point straight at singer Ian Curtis's suicide, which happened a few months before it was released. The band's reverberating mesh of minor-key lines and Curtis's bass voice are gloomy enough on their own, and attention to the words reveals references to blacker-than-black stories by JG Ballard and Joseph Conrad; the void and its terrors were splitting Curtis apart from the inside. "I put my trust in you," he sings, and his voice leaves no doubt that that trust has been betrayed. But the music, grim and powerful as it is, points to the direction the surviving members took as New Order, incorporating the mechanical gravity of club rhythms. --Douglas Wolk

CD Description
The news of singer Ian Curtis's suicide still hung in the air when this album was released. Given the deep introspective nature of Joy Division's music, his death invested CLOSER with an even greater pessimism. Yet there is a fragile beauty in its content and if Curtis's voice seems more distant, it complements the sparse textures created by mesmerising synthesizer lines and occasional, highly effective, piano. Slow, hypnotic tempos increase the sense of brooding mystery andif the few faster songs provide musical relief, their lyrics prove equally tortured. Eerie, yet compulsive, CLOSER confirmed Joy Divison's pre-eminent place in rock's pantheon.

Customer Reviews

Easily one of my favourites.
This is probably my favourite album ever made. It's simply beautiful. Recorded shortly before Ian Curtis' suicide in May 1980 - and ironically turning him into an icon to this day - it features the best work Joy Division ever made in this form. New Order, much as they tried, never quite measured up, even twenty-six years later.

Greatly assisted by the genius of Martin Hannett and his breathtaking production, the band are on fine, fatalistic form. Ian Curtis is at his lyrical best, especially on the closer, 'Decades,' but the real star here is Bernard Sumner. Always an underrated guitar player, (check out the messy solos on early Warsaw tune 'Failures') on this album he unleashes screeches, stabs of pure noise and wiry single note lines over the top of Peter Hook's ever-chiming bass. He also does a sterling job sitting at the keyboard, playing the album out with his wistful yet heartbreaking line in 'Decades' closing passage.

This is an extraordinary, exceptional album that's simultaneously depressing due to its circumstance and uplifting due to its beauty. Any New Order fan, or indeed any fan of music, is missing out if they don't purchase this astonishing, chilling example of why Ian Curtis is still missed.

Pure, beautiful horror
Despite their primitive sound, Joy Division were always perfect. They created bleak, austere slices of suffering that reflected a band utterly committed to a post-punk aesthetic of artistic salvation. Closer, their finest forty-five minutes, is simultaneously depressing and uplifting, creating an emotional no-man's land that leaves you feeling empty but enlightened.

The music works by creating simple and nagging melodic lines that dig into your subconscious and remain there like splinters. Each note and drum strike is played with absolute conviction as Ian Curtis half-sings/half-talks over the top with his tales of loneliness and suffering, tempered by a belief in salvation ("If you could just see the beauty/There's things I could never describe").

Some of the band's best songs are here. 'Isolation' manages to sound positive despite its theme of dejection. 'Heart and Soul' is hauntingly beautiful. 'Decades' closes the album perfectly with its glassy keyboard line and solemn vocal delivery. Each song acts as a hymn - a religious exorcism of darkness that leaves nothing but a stark white light in its wake.

It's difficult to find a time to actually 'enjoy' Joy Division, but there's a poetry, purity, beauty and sadness to 'Closer' that is incredibly compelling. Overlook at your peril.

Still Perfection
When i first listened to this album, i spent days with songs like Atrocity Exhibition and Heart And Soul playing on repeat. The music is so well crafted, the lyrics are unbelievable and ian curtis' delivers the whole thing off in a way that is impossible for you not to feel emotionally charged. The change from their early days is evident and i personally feel that it is a change for the better. Sumner's use of synthesizers is atmospheric and Hook's bass playing gets beyond playing chords. The drumming from Morris is tight and gives each song a greater edge. Hell i love all the albums but this is just pure genius... not just by Curtis but by the whole band

The best album of the 80s by far.