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I realize there are already a thousand other reviews of this album, purists may turn up their noses, but this one is written by yours truly for therapeutic purposes.
The day arrives when you lose a point of reference.
And this doesn't necessarily mean a bereavement, but rather a figure you took for granted in your days and that suddenly is no longer there.
By an ineffable twist of fate, this happens in a delicate moment, a time of future choices and a moment in which the vast majority of the population awakens drowsy with the first faint tastes of spring.
I cannot stay indoors, so I decide to grab my walkman (yes, my friends still tease me about this, and rightly so) with an old cassette tape given to me by my cousin, side A, side B, Joy Division "Closer."
It was an instinctive gesture, it's a period when I enjoy rediscovering the feats of early Litfiba and the first offerings of local bands like Diaframma, perhaps that's why I opted for the cassette of the Manchester band, or maybe also because I had an absolute need for empathy with the emptiness I felt inside at that moment.
And my memory suggested that the emptiness inside and behind the tracks of "Closer" could give me the empathy and help I needed.
So I find myself in the twilight of a mild March day walking like an idiot alone through the paths of my city's park, smoking cigarette after cigarette while the 44 minutes of the album play uninterrupted.
I was more captivated than ever by the excellence of the work.
A succession of masterpieces one after the other, a catharsis that, as we all know, ended in tragedy for Ian Curtis.
My thoughts overlap between Hook's pulsating bass and Sumner's sparse guitar, and the void behind the sounds I possess and make my own as I listen to Ian's sometimes martial and sometimes lascivious ranting.
Thank God mine isn't an existential ordeal like Ian's but just a moment of great difficulty that any of us may go through in life.
As I walk immersed in my thoughts, three things attract an astonishing amount of my attention and capture me inexorably.
"Twenty Four Hours," heartbreaking; you feel the man fighting with his last moral strength, trying in vain not to give up, an inexorable conflict of accelerations and decelerations with a bass heavy as only a heart can be, going mad and then calming in a convulsive hysteria.
A friend of mine played it on the piano a couple of years ago during my "Joy Division" phase, it was a minimal and stunning version that exuded the true essence; there are a couple of piano versions on YouTube, but they don't bring me back to my memory of that moment.
"The Eternal," well what can I say, "scattering flower washed by the rain" here Ian had decidedly stopped fighting, his self is just a conduit for his last thoughts, almost entirely impersonal.
"There are no words that can explain, no actions that can clarify" "just watching the trees and the falling leaves" his third-person crooning at this point makes me shiver and I have a start; I really look around me and see that the trees indeed have no leaves yet, so I think "but what's all the fuss about nineteen, twenty degrees" spring arriving here and there and then in a medium-sized park the trees are still bare like skeletons?”
It's a detail that struck me a lot and made me quite uneasy to compare in my mind the triumphant sun I woke up to just a couple of days ago with the dryness of those bare and precarious trees.
By now I have completely lost track of time and it's dark, it must be dinnertime I thought, but I don't feel hungry, the organ of "Decades" starts, "here are the young, the burden on their shoulders, here are the young, well where have they been?", I thought of Ian, I thought of how hard it must have been with his inner and psychophysical disaster to look his daughter in the eyes and see in her face the traits of defeat that Ian saw on everyone and in everything.
Ian was "Weary inside," a man exhausted inside.
I also encounter a couple of children on bicycles, and if by chance you empathize with Ian with the final loop of the synths of "Decades" in your earbuds, I assure you a couple of shivers run down your arms.
The work ends and leaves me speechless.
I'm still in the park and remain with the silence in the headphones.
It feels like the natural extension of the album.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
01 Atrocity Exhibition (06:04)
The silence when doors open wide
Where people could pay to see inside
For entertainment they watch
his body twist
Behind his eyes he says I still exist
This is the way, step inside
This is the way, step inside
This is the way, step inside
This is the way, step inside
In arenas he kills for a prize
Wins a minute to add to his life
But the sickness is drowned
by cries for more
Pray to God make it quick - watch him fall
This is the way, step inside
This is the way, step inside
This is the way, step inside
This is the way, step inside
This is the way
This is the way
This is the way
This is the way
This is the way, step inside
You'll see the horrors of a far-away place
Meet the architects of law
face to face
See mass murder on a scale
you've never seen
And all the ones who tried hard
to succeed
This is the way, step inside
This is the way, step inside
This is the way, step inside
This is the way, step inside
And I picked on the whims of
a thousand more
Still pursuing the path
that's been buried
For years of dead woods and jungles and
cities on fire, can't replace
or relate,
can't release or repair -
take my hand,
and I'll show you what was - it will be.
02 Isolation (02:53)
Be clear every day, every evening
It calls here aloud from above
Carefully watched for a reason
Mistaking devotion and love
Surrendered to self-preservation
For those who just care for themselves
But life as it touches perfection
Appears just like anything else
Isolation
Isolation
Isolation
Mother, I tried, please believe me
I'm doing the best that I can
I'm ashamed of the things
I've been put through
I'm ashamed of the person I am
Isolation
Isolation
Isolation
But if you could just see the beauty
These things I could never describe
This pleasure's a wayward distraction
This is my wonderful prize
Isolation
Isolation
Isolation
Isolation
Isolation
03 Passover (04:46)
This is a crisis I knew had to come,
Destroying the balance I'd kept.
Doubting, unsettling and turning around,
Wondering what will come next.
Is this the role that you wanted to live?
I was foolish to ask for so much.
Without the protection and infancy's guard,
It all falls apart at first touch.
Watching the reel as it comes to a close,
Brutally taking it's time,
People who change for no reason at all,
It's happening all of the time.
Can I go on with this train of events?
Disturbing and purging my mind,
Back out of my duties, when all's said and done,
I know that I'll lose every time.
Moving along in our God given ways,
Safety is sat by the fire,
Sanctuary from these feverish smiles,
Left with a mark on the door,
Is this the gift that I wanted to give?
Forgive and forget's what they teach,
Or pass through the deserts and wastelands once more,
And watch as they drop by the beach.
This is the crisis I knew had to come,
Destroying the balance I'd kept,
Turning around to the next set of lives,
Wondering what will come next.
04 Colony (03:55)
A cry for help, a hint of anaesthesia,
The sound from broken homes,
We used to always meet here.
As he lays asleep, she takes him in her arms,
Some things I have to do, but I don't mean you harm.
A worried parent's glance, a kiss, a last goodbye,
Hands him the bag she packed, the tears she tries to hide,
A cruel wind that blows down to our lunacy
And leaves him standing cold here in this colony.
I can't see why all these confrontations,
I can't see why all these dislocations,
No family life, this makes me feel uneasy,
Stood alone here in this colony.
In this colony, in this colony, in this colony, in this colony.
Dear God in his wisdom took you by the hand,
God in his wisdom made you understand.
God in his wisdom took you by the hand,
God in his wisdom made you understand.
God in his wisdom took you by the hand,
God in his wisdom made you understand.
God in his wisdom took you by the hand,
God in his wisdom made you understand.
In this colony, in this colony, in this colony, in this colony.
05 A Means to an End (04:05)
A legacy so far removed
One day will be improved
Eternal rights we left behind
We were the better kind
Two the same - set free too
I always looked to you.
We fought for good - stood side by side
Our friendship never died
On stranger waves - the lows and highs
Our vision touched the skies
Immortalists with points to prove
I put my trust in you.
A house somewhere on foreign soil
Where ageing lovers call
Is this your goal - your final needs?
Where dogs and vultures eat
Committed still, I turn to go
I put my trust in you.
In you, in you, in you
Put my trust in you, in you
07 Twenty Four Hours (04:26)
So this is permanence, love's shattered pride.
What once was innocence, turned on its side.
A cloud hangs over me, marks every move,
Deep in the memory, of what once was love.
Oh how I realised how I wanted time,
Put into perspective, tried so hard to find,
Just for one moment, thought I'd found my way.
Destiny unfolded, I watched it slip away.
Excessive flashpoints, beyond all reach,
Solitary demands for all I'd like to keep.
Let's take a ride out, see what we can find,
A valueless collection of hopes and past desires.
I never realised the lengths I'd have to go,
All the darkest corners of a sense I didn't know.
Just for one moment, I heard somebody call,
Looked beyond the day in hand, there's nothing there at all.
Now that I've realised how it's all gone wrong,
Gottas find some therapy, this treatment takes too long.
Deep in the heart of where sympathy held sway,
Gotta find my destiny, before it gets too late.
08 The Eternal (06:06)
Procession moves on, the shouting is over,
Praise to the glory of loved ones now gone.
Talking aloud as they sit round their tables,
Scattering flowers washed down by the rain.
Stood by the gate at the foot of the garden,
Watching them pass like clouds in the sky,
Try to cry out in the heat of the moment,
Possessed by a fury that burns from inside.
Cry like a child, though these years make me older,
With children my time is so wastefully spent,
A burden to keep, though their inner communion,
Accept like a curse an unlucky deal.
Played by the gate at the foot of the garden,
My view stretches out from the fence to the wall,
No words could explain, no actions determine,
Just watching the trees and the leaves as they fall.
09 Decades (06:09)
Here are the young men, the weight on their shoulders,
Here are the young men, well where have they been?
We knocked on the doors of Hell's darker chamber,
Pushed to the limit, we dragged ourselves in,
Watched from the wings as the scenes were replaying,
We saw ourselves now as we never had seen.
Portrayal of the trauma and degeneration,
The sorrows we suffered and never were free.
Where have they been?
Where have they been?
Where have they been?
Where have they been?
Weary inside, now our heart's lost forever,
Can't replace the fear, or the thrill of the chase,
Each ritual showed up the door for our wanderings,
Open then shut, then slammed in our face.
Where have they been?
Where have they been?
Where have they been?
Where have they been?
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Other reviews
By TenshiSell
Ian Curtis was about to become a living legend. He lucidly chose to limit himself to being a legend.
You collapse to the ground, a scream frees you from a burden.
By Mr.Moustache
It is 1980. Punk is dying and with it the little good music ... when suddenly, in less than a year, an album is about to change the course of contemporary music forever.
The glacial beauty of the album is indisputable due to the ruthless sincerity it suggests.
By andrea biacca
"Closer" is a journey made of nightmares, sadness, physical and mental stimulations; the musical transposition of the agony of the most charismatic leader rock has ever had: Ian Curtis.
All we have left is to listen to this musical masterpiece and appreciate its excellent craftsmanship, both in terms of lyrics and harmonies.
By COX
Closer is the testament in which Curtis invites us to explore the roots of his illness and his apathy towards life.
Joy Division has the power to tear you apart, to gradually consume you with their melody that backs you against the wall and forces you to face reality for what it is.
By darkfall
‘Closer’ is a truly difficult album to classify, but probably not to understand... I personally prefer to classify it as dark, just dark and nothing more.
‘The Eternal’ is a funeral march, accompanying Ian Curtis on his last journey... the heart is now definitively burned but the soul is still here.
