Closer

Closer was recorded between 18 and 30 March 1980 at Britannia Row Studios in Islington, London, and produced by Martin Hannett. The songs were mostly written or shaped in jam sessions in the practice room. Atrocity Exhibition, Passover, Colony, A Means to an End and Twenty Four Hours came from the second half of 1979 and had been played live. Isolation, Heart and Soul, The Eternal and Decades were written in early 1980 with more prominent synthesisers. The fiction of J. G. Ballard was a significant influence on the lyrics, and the opening track takes its title from his 1970 collection The Atrocity Exhibition.

Sumner and Hook were again unhappy with Hannett's work. Hook complained that Atrocity Exhibition was mixed on one of his days off and that the abrasiveness of his guitar part had been toned down. The sleeve, by Martyn Atkins and Peter Saville, uses Bernard Pierre Wolff's 1978 photograph of the Appiani family tomb in Genoa's Staglieno cemetery.

Release and reception

Factory released Closer on 18 July 1980. It reached number 6 on the UK Albums Chart and number 3 in New Zealand in September 1981, and NME named it its album of the year. By 1982 it had sold more than 250,000 copies worldwide. It placed 22nd in the 1980 Pazz and Jop poll of American critics.

Klein, in his 2007 Pitchfork review, called it "even more austere, more claustrophobic, more inventive" than the debut. Robert Christgau wrote that the rhythms had "a life of their own". Rolling Stone ranked it number 157 in its 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums and number 309 in 2020. The album is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.