Closer review

The second and final album from Post-Punk band Joy Division. Ian Curtis tragically committed suicide before it was released and the rest of the members went on to reform as New Order. Will it grab me more than Unknown Pleasures?

Tracks:

1. Atrocity Exhibition: 7/10 a good opening in many ways. It's technically good and the lyrics resemble bleak poetry, but it's overlong and while the mixing is often effective, more often than not the multiple sounds clash together like a disorderly prison riot in a rather jarring manner.

2. Isolation: 7/10 the same problems I have with most Joy Division songs are present here so I won't repeat myself. The intro and outro are cool and I like the baseline as well.

3. Passover: 5/10 I don't have much to say about this one. It's just a bit boring. Pass over this one.

4. Colony: 7/10 it has its moments. The beat is pretty good but it gets a bit repetitive. At times the instrumental drowns out Ian Curtis' singing.

5. A Means to an End: 6/10 more of the same.

6. Heart and Soul: 6/10 the lyrics are excellent but unfortunately the music itself frequently bores.

7. Twenty Four Hours: 7/10 it's sort of the other way round; the music is much more enjoyable but the lyrics are perhaps a tiny bit weaker than they were on other songs.

8. The Eternal: 7/10 it didn't need to be 6 minutes long, but this one does hold a strange hypnotic quality, mainly thanks to an effective baseline.

9. Decades: 8/10 at the end of the album, an accomplished mixture of haunting sounds and lyrics is finally achieved. Entertaining to listen to yet still thought provoking, this is how to end an album.

Best song: Decades
Worst song: Passover

Summary: Closer is similar to Unknown Pleasures. It's technically accomplished, singular and features plenty of bleakly poetic lyrics sung well by the late Ian Curtis. But it's no fun to listen to, it's often pretentious, it's restrained and it's too stripped back to truly resonate. None of the songs are necessarily bad but none of them are that great aside from some good lyrics and good instrumentals here and there. I can see why people like it, but for me it feels like listening to the same song again and again with different baselines, while in terms of depressing imagery it's about as deep and subtle as a photo album full of miserable photos entitled 'Depressing stuff'.

Final rating: 6/10