125) Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

A two-album career, one of them released after they already gone. However, there are numerous books, films and platitudes thrown Joy Division’s way and they are often mentioned as one of the UK’s greatest ever groups.

Ian Curtis was only twenty-three when he committed suicide with a wife and child and was struggling and took what he could see as the only option. It’s a tragic end for him and the group, no one knows what he was feeling at this moment, but we can all agree he left us with some fantastic music.

Unknown Pleasures is before the tragedy and legacy and is considered one of the greatest debuts ever.

Producer Martyin Hannet adds to the overall brilliance of the album with smashing bottles, vocals down telephones and what sounds like Space Invaders on Insight (don’t think it is but does remind me of the game)

The album opens with Disorder where we hear one of the greatest rhythm sections in music history Morris and Hook who start the record before Sumner and Curtis come in, its frantic, edgy, intense and a brilliant opener.

Day of the Lords is a brooding beast with each band member giving the other one space and Curtis stepping it up in the last minute.

New Dawn Fades opens rather strangely with previous song Insight backwards before the band launch into a lengthy industrial instrumental part. Sumner is often overlooked as a guitarist, and he is exceptional here.

She’s Lost Control and Shadowplay are wonderful pop moments sonically monumental with a sinister undercurrent, what a start to side two.

We are post punk here and, but Interzone is the most punk sounding song here and we are taken out with I Remember Nothing.

This is a brutal beautiful startling listen, and we still have another album to come to cement their majesty.

9/10

GIVE IT A STREAM: Shadowplay