In a flat in Manchester in January 1980, Ian Curtis (yes, that Ian Curtis, a few months from becoming post-punk’s most mourned voice at 23) of the band Joy Division sat gluing coarse sandpaper onto record covers.
Even his one obvious point of overlap with the scene — producer Martin Hannett, the man who gave Joy Division their addictive, cavernous sound on their debut album, Unknown Pleasures (1979) — worked in the opposite direction here, turning Reilly’s playing spacious and bright rather than bleak. If you’ve been following them since the sandpaper days, you already know what 15 years of silence, finally broken, sounds like, and don’t need me to tell you to go and listen. Here is the first thing worth pondering, before we get anywhere near the music: that sleeve is one of the most talked-about objects to emerge from the post-punk era, and it is attached to an album that sounds absolutely nothing like the ploy implies. There is no confrontation. No noise. No sneer. Just Reilly’s clean, fingerpicked, echo-drenched guitar, drifting and melodic, occasionally complemented by Martin Hannett’s synthesisers and turned into something closer to chamber music than to punk’s antagonism. That contradiction, it turns out, is the story of the band. Post-punk, as a genre, is largely a tale of voices with something to say. There is Joy Division’s darkness, Gang of Four’s Marxist sloganeering, The Fall’s gnarly sneer. This is music built on lyrical seriousness and rhythmic aggression. Renascent is a masterful return. Reilly’s luminescent guitar work effortlessly blends the band’s post-punk roots with ambient minimalism. The album captures a poignant, romantic nostalgia while feeling entirely progressive. Standout tracks feature ethereal vocals from Rose, balancing delicate, dreamlike arrangements with unexpected rhythmic shifts. Start with Sketch for Summer (from their debut album), then sit with whichever Renascent track catches you first.
Reilly himself had nothing to do with it, and later said he was mortified when he found out.
