Mourning glory







JOY DIVISION:
"Closer"
(Factory Records FACT XXV).

  From the beginning we were always dealing with something special. Joy
Division, by the very nature of their set up, could never have been just
another band caught up in the insanity of musical manoeuvres. Stubbornly
isolated away from the machinery, coming and going as they pleased, they
never bowed to any demand except that of their own choosing. Everything was
controlled and balanced, allowing them flexibility in all areas, from the
choice of venue, to the giving away of singles without a murmur of fuss.
  They were too sensitive, too serious, too Joy Division, to be dragged
down into an unwelcome destructive limelight. With their music, as 
evidenced on their debut album "Unknown Pleasures" and consequent singles,
they began to fuse together a body of sound and vision that was unique.
  Naturally, the events surrounding Curtis's strange and violent action of 
three months cling unavoidably around "Closer", but it's interesting to
note the matters Curtis was raising at the time with two recurring themes
emerging. Religion and an almost fervent admission of defeat of whatever
Curtis was hoping to achieve.
  "This is a crisis I knew had to come/Disturbing and purging my mind... I
knew that I'd lose every time," he cries out in "Colony" while, later on, 
in "Twenty Four Hours", he admits: "Just for one moment I thought I'd found
my way... I watched it slip away", before a great rush of music enters to
sweep the song away.
  Elsewhere, confessional admissions of hopelessness and despair abound, 
("I never realised the lengths I'd have to go") alongside scattered 
references to matters religious via phrases and words such as "inner
communion", "God in his wisdom took you by the hand", and so on.
  Of course, the cover painting of Mary Magdalen mourning Jesus's dead body
gives us fair warning of this, but what exactly is being communicated is, 
as always, left to the listener.
  Paradoxically, given the intense personal revelations of Curtis which run
like fire throughout, the actual music is some of the most irresistible
dance music we'll hear this year. When you're listening to something like
"Means To An End" you have to realise that Joy Division have in Peter Hook 
and Stephen Morris one of the best rhythm sections going. Always precise, 
always tight and hard, they're the foundation on which Bernard Albrecht
either lays over great savage wedges of disorientating noise or allows
himself interplay with the bass, bouncing off it frequently with sweet,
offsetting guitar lines that somehow always move on their own.
  With "Closer" too, the band enhance their atmospherics even further with
the introduction of keyboards; like the music, they're always at a simple 
level, never imposing or outstaying their welcome and laying to waste the
notion that Joy Division create difficult, inaccessible music. They don't.
  "The Eternal" enters with a swish of rattles, a solid bass and a 
magnificent haunting melody that complements perfectly Curtis's evocation 
of mood and atmosphere. In "Isolation", the melody is carried by the almost 
disarmingly simple synthesiser line that is pushed forward by some 
relentless drumming and brittle bass work.
  It's a far cry for sure from the almost suffocating claustrophobic world
of the debut album, but the concerns are still the same. The best (and most
subversive?) rock music has always dealt head-on with emotions and thought
rather than cliched, standardised stances; that's what makes "Closer" and 
Joy Division so important.
  In this age of grand illusion, fear and apprehension, Joy Division 
mirrored perfectly our lives and times. This is the way. Step inside.
- PAULO HEWITT    

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