You can get off to a fast start. You can sustain your opener with the main course, not filler. But can you end on a high note? Sometimes I wonder if recording a strong closer is the most difficult thing to pull off when it comes to album rock. When it comes to the cream of the crop in music, I can think of more strong openers than strong closers. Nonetheless, I still have my favorites which I’ll be featuring on Mental Jukebox all month.
Few bands can be described as monumental. But I’ll go ahead and say that Joy Division is truly monumental as pioneers and influencers. They were simply doing things no one else was doing. And no one else sounded like Joy Division. Much credit, of course, goes to the irreplaceable Ian Curtis. His tortured, almost catatonic vocals crawled under your skin. There are many monumental tracks in the Joy Division canon, and one of the premier examples is the closer to Closer. There’s a tactile quality about “Decades” that makes it stand out from all the other JD tracks.
Every musical component on “Decades” feels incredibly tactile, a huge credit to Martin Hannett. I don’t love everything he produced for the band, but I think he totally nailed this closing track. The synthesizer chords are like glass shards. The bass line isn’t your typical riff from Hooky, but it works as the listener feels the pluck of every note. The drum intro kicks off eerily similar to “She’s Lost Control”, only here Morris switches into a heavier, rock-like drum part at the 4:35 mark. But the hero once again is Ian. His voice sounds like a ghost that refuses to leave the premises.
“Each ritual showed up the door for our wanderings, Open then shut, then slammed in our face.”