The first thing you notice may be Martin Hannett's production. Like the album cover, these songs are landscapes, soundscapes, three-dimensional waves on two-dimensional backdrops. Voices echo, get stronger, whisper behind others and vibrate. A brilliant emphasis on space is revealed with each weird synth sound of shattering glass and scraping metal.
Or maybe you notice Bernard Sumner's guitar work, the way he redefines the conventions of heavy metal with unnerving patches of feedback and vibrant energy. He creates a wonderful sense of doom with each trip up and down the strings.
Perhaps it's bassist Peter Hook's and drummer Steven Morris' infectious, unmistakable bass work. Theirs is the beating heart in all these songs, resonating and pulsing quietly, warmly but chillingly.
More likely it's Ian Curtis haunting, "holy" voice that somehow pierces through and unites every song, purifying them in the process. He sounds almost desperate to connect, unleashing a lyrical force that ultimately owns these songs. This an album that works beautifully because everyone is on the same page. But it is a page in Curtis' dark, short novel about passion and energy unraveling in cathartic despair.
Pick any song on the album, the charged opener Disorder, the painfully honest Candidate, the anxious death rattle of She's Lost Control, all so different but all united by what Joy Division set out to do: change music forever.
