Joy Division Still reviewed in Creem magazine, April 1982

It took over 30 years but I finally tracked down this review of Joy Division's Still from the April 1982 edition of Creem magazine.

I've read hundreds, maybe thousands of record reviews in my life and this is my favorite, one of the absolute best. I don't think I've ever read a review, before or since, that piqued my curiosity and made me so excited to hear an album as this one did. And when I got the record it was EXACTLY like the reviewer described it. I had never heard of Joy Division when I read it...but I knew before I'd hit the halfway mark that they were destined to be an absolute favorite, and for better or worse, incredibly influential addition to my sound world. For the longest time I emulated Ian Curtis' bleak, despair-fueled poetry/lyrics in my own writing. They hit uncomfortably close to home to the extent that there were long periods of time in my life when I actively avoided listening to Joy Division records because the stark, desolate lyrics did not mix well with my own depression...

...and this review was the start of it all. I've taken the liberty to transcribe it, as the scans on the hosting website are typically blurry and difficult to read. They can be accessed HERE.

Silent
by j. poet
a review of Still by Joy Division
April 1982

Before I listened to Still for the first time I was wondering how much attention I should pay to the fact that Ian Curtis, Joy Division's singer and lyricist, had killed himself. I've read many reviews of the band that concentrated more on his personal tragedy than on the bands music. My decision was made for me. The first lyric that breaks out of the murky mix of "Exercise One", the album's first track, has Curtis moaning "One last ride before the end of it all..." while the band drags the tune down a long battered hallway to a foregone fate. Every track on the first side of the album makes explicit references to self-destruction. Underlined by the band's industrial guitar overtones and the disjointed rhythm section, fragments of Curtis' tortured psyche bob to the surface, gasp for air, and vanish. This is not, you can see, merely light entertainment.

The first two sides of Still collect rare B-sides and out-takes from Joy Division's two LPs that span the life of the band. Although they dealt with anger, desperation, loneliness and an almost neurotic self-examination from the first, the early tracks ("Glass", "They Walked in Line") sound more or less "normal", with guitar, bass and drums chugging spiritedly along behind the singer. The band soon met dark production genius Martin Hannett at Factory Records and the Joy Division "sound" arrives full-blown on "Dead Souls"; on a subliminal level, you have taped sounds of screaming and breaking glass that are slowed down to a disturbing whine, a backdrop of almost painful gray noise. On top of this the band plays and the singer pleads for mercy. Multi-tracked guitars and washed of synthesizer occupy the middle ground in back of which the bass and drums fight over the beat. Then there's Curtis's voice, something else again---you can almost hear his personality disintegrating before your very ears. The hopeless passion of his vocals and the doomed poetry of the lyrics examining emotions too much that most people would rather ignore, it's as if he's prying off the top of his skull to let the world in on his personal angst. One has to admire his courage, but at the same time you can't help but feeling like some kind of psychiatric voyeur. The combination of Curtis's persecuted wail and the relentless pulse of the music creates a tension that is never released. Track after track, the music pushes toward a conclusion that is hinted at but never directly articulated. The only glimmer of light on the first two sides is a live version of the Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray". After the tag line "I had a good night" is chanted into an incoherent coda ("I had a good life, good knife, wife, lice, light, etc.) Curtis laughs aloud and mumbles to the crowd, "Hey, ya oughta hear our version of "Louie, Louie".

The second record is a set of Joy Division hits, recorded before a live crowd at Birmingham University in 1980, shortly before the second album Closer and Curtis's ultimate statement. In my mind Joy Division had always existed in something of a vacuum. The individual tracks on Closer and Unknown Pleasures sometimes seem too real, too perfect to have been created by mere humans. They sound so much like the sounds I've heard inside my head at certain times I'd rather forget that I couldn't see them being played at a concert. Visions of a room full of suicide monks in shapeless, colorless robes weeping silent tears in time to the band was what I'd imagined. People writing songs like "She's Lost Control" and "Isolation" surely must stay at home, even on the gloomiest evenings. What a surprise to hear the crowd screaming, whistling, clapping and calling out for their favorite tunes.

Stripped of everything but the moment, the band pushes hard and out on the edge is Curtis, sobbing, screaming, lamenting his lack of feeling, protesting some real or self-imposed degradation, making art out of humiliation. The songs that later appeared on Closer were probably being worked out at this gig and it's interesting to note how close to the final studio tracks they are. Joy Division knew what they wanted and they went after it without any frills or excess baggage. This is as close to raw emotion as you're able to get, maybe closer than anyone who wants to survive is comfortable getting.

Like their other albums, Still isn't a record that one puts on for background noise while rolling a joint or getting ready for a big Saturday night. This is bleak music that finds its own particular heroism by going on against all odds. When I first heard Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures I wondered how Curtis could last if he really was feeling all those things he sang about. I guess he couldn't, but before he died he helped to create a body of work that will haunt me for a long, long time to come. If you're not afraid to look into the heart of darkness, Joy Division will show it to you. Good luck.

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