NME 3/6/78
Live review by Paul Morley
MANCHESTER
Joy Division were once Warsaw, a punk group with
literary pretentions. Warsaw Pakt forced them to
change names.
They disappeared for a while at the end of last
year, and have re-emerged with their new name, an
EP and their pretentions even more to the fore.
Their record attempts to communicate in an almost
tangible way all the abstraction of Buzzcocks'
"Spiral Scratch". It is called "An Ideal For
Living", and is on the Enigma label. It proclaims
on the sleeve that "this is not a concept EP, it is
an enigma."
Despite all this, the record is structurally
good, though soundwise poor, a reason it may not be
widely released.
They're a dry, doomy group who depend promisingly
on the possibilities of repetition, sudden
stripping away, with deceptive dynamics, whilst
they use sound in a more orthodox hard rock manner
than, say, either The Fall or Magazine.
They have an ambiguous appeal, and with patience
they could develop strongly and make some testing,
worthwhile metallic music.
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