Closer - Remastered Studio Album With Bonus Disc: "Live At University Of London Union" (1980)

"If "Unknown Pleasures" was Joy Division at their most obsessively, carefully focused, "Closer" was the chaotic explosion that went every direction at once. Producer Martin Hannett seems to have taken as many chances as the band itself -- differing mixes and atmospheres, new twists and turns define "Closer", songs suddenly returned in chopped-up, crumpled form. Opener "Atrocity Exhibition" was arguably the most fractured thing the band had yet recorded, Bernard Sumner's teeth-grinding guitar and Stephen Morris' Can-on-speed drumming making for one heck of a strange start. Keyboards also took the fore more so than ever -- the drowned pianos underpinning Curtis' shadowy moan on "The Eternal," the squirrelly lead synth on the energetic but scared-out-of-its-wits "Isolation," and above all "Decades". Joy Division were at the height of their powers. Rock rarely sounded so important, vital, so impossible to resist or ignore as here." (Ned Raggett, Allmusic) Met nogal non-HiFi live-CD, opgenomen in februari 1980.

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