Which alternative rock band released the 1980 album Unknown Pleasures?

Joy Division released the 1980 alternative rock album Unknown Pleasures.

It was the Manchester band’s debut studio album and the only Joy Division album released during singer Ian Curtis’s lifetime. Martin Hannett produced the record for Factory Records, shaping its spacious, stark sound with studio effects and carefully separated instrumental parts.

The album contains “Disorder,” “She’s Lost Control,” “New Dawn Fades,” and “Shadowplay.” Its cover, designed by Peter Saville, uses white radio-pulse lines on a black background and became one of the most recognizable images in post-punk history. The design was based on a visualization of signals from a pulsar.

Unknown Pleasures is often confused with Closer, Joy Division’s second and final studio album. Closer was released in July 1980, two months after Curtis’s death, whereas Unknown Pleasures appeared in June 1979 in the United Kingdom and established the band’s influential post-punk identity.