Jon Savage’s “This Searing Light, the Sun and Everything Else” documents the formation, brief life and sudden end of the phenomenal Manchester, England, band Joy Division.

Much has been written about this band; some of the sharpest music writers have given their best trying to capture its essence. As brilliant as some of this work is, Joy Division seems to remain in the shadows, just out of reach of critical assessment. Joy Division’s music doesn’t “rock” in the classic sense as much as shudder, roar and convulse. The songs are readings of temperature, light and lack of light. They walk silently for hours on city streets and return alone to small rooms with full ashtrays and no messages on the machine. It’s a fantastically difficult question to answer: Why do you like Joy Division? The more dedicated the listener, the more likely you’ll get an inhaled breath held for a few seconds, an exhale and a shrug.

Savage is one of those aforementioned very talented scribes, who perhaps understands all too well how difficult it would be for any one person to create a clear picture of Joy Division. What better way to tell the story than to ask others to tell its story? By interviewing remaining members and those who bore witness, Savage’s oral history of the band carefully connects the dots.

Joy Division was Peter Hook on bass, Bernard Sumner on guitar, Stephen Morris on drums and Ian Curtis on vocals. The band’s first release, from summer 1978, a four-track 7-inch record called “An Ideal for Living,” could be labeled functionally as post punk, one of the best results of punk music’s exhilarating flash-pot bang. The songs are great but show a band only somewhat in control of its talent. Hearing what came next, you wonder if at that time, the four had any idea of what they were capable of.

https://www.latimes.com/books/la-ca-jc-jon-savage-joy-division-henry-rollins-20190420-story.html