Ian Curtis has been gone for 37 years. More legend than actual flesh and blood human
at this point, Curtis’ harrowing baritone and gloomy songwriting has influenced
countless bands to pick up instruments and pour their existential torment into
song. Hell, Interpol were practically a Joy Division cover band when they first
came slunking out of the NYC underground at the turn of the century! While Curtis – in all of his tragic beauty,
so committed to his message that he ended his own life on the eve of what was
surely to be their breakthrough album – can be seen as the “face” of Joy
Division, it was clearly bassist Peter Hook who was the band’s thumping,
pugilistic heart. Hooky’s basslines not
only formed the backbone of the band’s sound, but also tied the band to the
punk underground from which it was spawned.
It’s fitting, then, that his new band The Light, have become standard
bearers and protectors of sorts for the Joy Division catalogue.
Over the course of a couple years, Peter Hook and the Light
have traveled Europe and the U.S. performing the two Joy Division albums and
the first two New Order records in full.
This might seem at best an exercise in nostalgia and at worst a crass
flogging of the corpse for filthy lucre.
You would be right to seem skeptical.
Here’s the thing, though – these four releases feel wholly vital! In the place of Curtis’ vampiric croon, Hook’s
hoarse bellow breathes new life into the songs that he’s probably played
thousands of times. Part tribute, part exorcism, songs like “Day of the Lords”,
“Candidate” and “Dead Souls” shake off the funereal air of their studio
renditions and become something bigger, fleshier, livelier. It’s a
thrill to hear some of the material from “Closer” performed live for the first
time, and the backing band (basically Hook’s late-90s combo Monaco and his son
Jack on second bass) more than capably turns what were skeletal, tense sketches
into blasts of fury and sound. These live versions
also reveal something that is often overlooked in the canonization of Joy Division
as godfathers of mope – their songs have hips!
I’m not sure that anyone would ever categorize “New Dawn Fades’ as a
dance song, but you can really sway and move to it in a way that is both
surprising and entirely natural. And
this might be the greatest feat of these albums – removing the weight of
history and importance and turning them into breathing, living
rock songs. This balance of reverence
and feral attack is Hook’s greatest gift.
Though Ian Curtis may be but a memory, I’d like to think that he would
approve of Hooky’s curation and reinvigoration of his short life’s work.
