Unknown Pleasures R1979 – 5*
Closer R1980 – 5*
Still R1981 – 5*
Joy Division are rivalled only by The Velvet Underground in the establishment of such an influential legacy with such a small canon of recorded work. When their career was abruptly re-routed by the suicide of singer Ian Curtis in 1980, they had recorded just two complete albums and were still a month away from their biggest hit, “Love Will Tear Us Apart” – which has endured to become as universally adored an English pop classic as “Waterloo Sunset”.
The real treasure of this reissue is the four live albums that have been attached to the studio canon. These confirm that the legend of Joy Division’s dementedly intense live shows, cultivated by the several hundred million who claim to have witnessed one, has a solid basis in reality.
ANDREW MUELLER