Killing Joke

The influence exerted by Killing Joke on the bands of the 1990s, particularly those of industrial music and “noise-rock,” perhaps has no equal in the annals of British rock.

The apocalyptic rock of Killing Joke can be seen as the meeting point of two traditions: that of British futurism, which came from the icy pieces of Ultravox, and that of American new wave, which came from the grotesque pantomimes of Pere Ubu. In effect it was a synthesis of historic scope, one that would forever overturn the meaning of the rock song (dissonant guitar, distorted electronics, psychotic vocals).

Their story began at the end of the 1970s, under the leadership of singer and organist Jaz Coleman, with a triptych of singles. The first, Almost Red (1979), with the dub Turn To Red and especially the pressing Are You Receiving, was still uncertain in its attempts to move beyond punk rock. But the second and third effectively laid the foundations for much of the avant-garde rock of the following decade.

The force casually unleashed by Requiem (1980) was emblematic of the effectiveness of the band’s technique: the insistent mechanical ballet of the bass, the floating cloud of guitar distortions, the anguished scream-song that mumbles a refrain almost sobbing it out have the sole purpose of building dramatic tension. As in the best thrillers the important thing is to suggest what will happen without necessarily making it happen, so in Killing Joke the trick lies in making the listener sense the music that will not necessarily be played; in endlessly delaying the logical development of the piece, in voyeuristically indulging in sounds that should merely be preparations for the purpose of the piece.

Much more aggressive, with a more explicit violence, is Wardance (1980), structured like a macabre pow-wow, with the guitar riff repeated obsessively, a diabolical grunt-song, a Devo-like chorus of aliens, and miasmic phrases of synthesizer (played by Coleman). Pere Ubu in a catacombal, beyond-the-grave version, in short.

In these two pieces their entire sonic philosophy was already summarized: Kevin “Geordie” Walker battered the guitar, at times extracting razor-sharp dissonances, at times slashing almost heavy-metal strokes, and at times hammering out a mad cadence; Jaz Coleman railed against humanity, a nihilist-futurist bard of the post-industrial age; drummer Paul Ferguson kept a tribal and sinister beat, which the robotic bass of Martin Glover transformed into something cold and abstract.

Killing Joke (EG, 1980) merely set out those programmatic ideas at length and applied them to various sonic forms. In Tomorrow's World the synth intermittently drives a three-note melodic figure into a Siouxsie-like progression (very distorted, but also slow and heavy in cadence, with the gloomy incitement of a shamanic scream kept in the background). Killing Joke expanded their sphere of influence over the gothic and the futurist that had permeated British music for years.
Bloodsport, the funkiest piece, in which all those elements (tribal, electronic, metallurgical, abrasive) are placed at the service of dance, was instead the disco version of their method, and anticipated by a decade solutions of 1990s industrial music.
The Wait (Malicious Damage) also assimilated the crackling, driving guitar style of heavy metal, immersing it in a highly rhythmic context, with drums and bass engaged in maintaining a frenzied cadence that suddenly derails dissonantly, only to resume once again its inexorable “danse macabre”; above it all rises Coleman’s epic cry, filled with anguish and despair.
Change reconnected with the sonic universe of the Pop Group, powered by a rhythm syncopated like heavy machinery, by clanging guitar dissonances, and by a scream reverberated as in dub. The most experimental of all was $.0.36, which manages to build from chaos a cadence like an esoteric ritual, in the line traced by Cabaret Voltaire. The record appropriately closes with Primitive, practically nothing but a long “waiting” for a refrain that will never come, while the rhythm section and guitar relentlessly repeat the same obtuse sounds.
These hymns of the apocalypse, grandiloquent and emphatic, once and for all defined how to mix guitar, keyboards, rhythm section, and vocals—that is, polyphony—in the post-punk era.

The second album, What's This For (EG, 1981), standardized that sound for the world of the dance floor, while sacrificing relatively little of its sinister momentum. What had mostly been lost along the way was the frenzied, agitated fervor of punk rock. The pieces were valued more for their “trademarks” than for their development: the terrifying guitar noise that tears apart The Fall Of Because at a frantic tam-tam rhythm (and Coleman’s scream seems truly to lose itself in a headlong plunge into an abyss); the reworking of the basic concepts of dub in Madness, transformed into a long, hallucinatory war dance; the fusion of funk, Africanism, and heavy metal in Tension to coin a new kind of dance music; the incessant roar of the rhythm section in Unspeakable; the interpenetration of rhythm, electronics, and riff in Exit, giving rise to something hypnotically anti-harmonic. The only song that could stand on its own was Follow The Leaders, in which the danceable march (one of the fastest, loudest, and most polyrhythmic) is placed at the service of a futuristic horror.

Revelations (EG, 1982) nevertheless confirmed the band’s lack of imagination, as it was beginning to entrench itself around the tricks of its trade. The shift toward dance music nevertheless yielded their first hit, Empire Song. After that lackluster effort the bassist (Youth) left the band.

With Paul "Raven" Vincent on bass, the band recorded first the single Birds Of A Feather (1982) and then their fourth album, Fire Dances (EG, 1983). This is practically a festival of Ferguson’s drumming, which dominates from beginning to end, propelling the martial nursery rhyme of Rejuvenation and leading the wild quadrille of Frenzy. The production for the first time softens the gloomy tones, and a few rays of sunlight finally illuminate the twilight. The result is much more conventional (and melodic) songs such as Feast Of Blaze and Let's All Go.

Night Time (EG, 1985) decidedly gave more space and prominence to catchy refrains (in particular Eighties and Love Like Blood, their only real hits) than to the old-style pieces. On Brighter Than A Thousand Suns (EG, 1986) only the atmospheric phrases of the synth and the methodical beat of the rhythm machine really matter anymore. Sanity is the hit of the moment, Adorations the most paranoid piece. But after further lineup changes and one last album, Outside The Gate (EG, 1988), Coleman and Walker decided to dissolve the group.

In the meantime Martin Atkins (formerly of P.I.L.) had taken over on drums. It was he who animated the new lineup (a quartet with Coleman, Walker, and Raven) that recorded Extremities, Dirt & Various Repressed Emotions (Noise International, 1990). His stormy drumming underpins one of the most violent and overwhelming sounds of their career, a maelstrom of lacerating chords. Coleman has not lost the habit of actually singing (rather than merely screaming as he did at the beginning), but in compensation Walker discovered Jourgensen (Ministry) and learned the lesson.
For every didactic sermon such as Age Of Greed, there is a massive nightmare at stratospheric speed such as Money Is Not Our God; for every theatrical and showy piece such as Inside The Termite Mound, there is a tumultuous and chameleonic danse macabre such as The Beautiful Dead; for a near-grindcore track such as Extremities, there is a near-thrash one such as Struggle.
The most notable novelty compared with their classic sound is the ability to animate the progression of a song, either by changing tempo, arrangement, or melody, in order to build atmospheres of panic (Solitude) and trauma (Slipstream). In fact the most direct reference for this record is Second Edition by Public Image Ltd. The noises and dissonances are elegantly measured, fused into the mix so that they are never perceived as discontinuities (almost as in the records of the later Pink Floyd). From a “dramaturgical,” if not strictly “dramatic,” point of view, it is their best record.

Coleman also recorded in 1990 with Anne Dudley (of the Art Of Noise) the album Songs From The Victorious City (TVT), in which, accompanied by a traditional Egyptian orchestra (violin, lute, qanun, flute), an accordion, and other African instruments, with Dudley on electronic keyboards and Coleman on violin and flute, they attempt to set world music to a disco rhythm, with results that are evocative if not always successful.

Murder Inc (Invisible, 1992) is the moniker under which Atkins (now also active with Pigface) brings Killing Joke back to the track—minus Coleman, but with Paul Ferguson back on board—and adding Chris Connelly (vocals) and John Bechdel (sampling). Atkins orchestrates, almost from a distance, tracks like Supergrass, in which he coins a futurist hard rock that seems to descend primarily from Hawkwind, and Murder Inc, in which he proposes a reinterpretation of hip-hop in a violently rock key. Connelly's sterile chanting is compensated for by the monolithic percussiveness of Atkins and Ferguson, the insistent dub of Raven, and the searing lashes of Walker—elements that explode in the grand finale of Last Of The Urgents. In the end, the album is perhaps worth more than those of Pigface. Years later, other unreleased material would be paired with the reissue of this album on Locate Subvert Terminate (Invisible, 2000).

Pandemonium (Big Life, 1994) features the original lineup (Coleman, Walker, Youth) minus Ferguson, intent on attempting to repurpose their own music from ten years prior, but the Exorcism that steers it and the other esoteric rituals no longer frighten anyone. The songs use a confused jumble of citations: Led Zeppelin (Pandemonium), Tangerine Dream (Labyrinth), techno (White Out), etc.

And Democracy (Big Life, 1996) is so insecure and confused that it seems to have been composed and recorded by amateur fans of Killing Joke. Democracy shows just how inferior they had become compared to their disciples, Nine Inch Nails.

Killing Joke (Zuma, 2003), with Dave Grohl on drums, is the typical album that is hailed as "a return to form"... just like the previous one, that this one is supposed to redeem, and just like the following one, that will be hailed as the one that redeems this one. Truth is, these talented middle-aged outfit uses its repertory of old tricks to hypnotize a new generation. The relevant news is the brutal production of Gang Of Four's bassist Andy Gill, but the result is a derivative take on the old (very old) sound of Ministry and Godflesh. The seven-minute The Death And Resurrection Show does its job egregiously, but the likes of Total Invasion, The House That Pain Built, Blood on Your Hands and Implant are so stereotyped that one can only wish the next album will "not" be a return to form. So much so that even the ballad You'll Never Get to Me sounds more original than it actually is.

Chaos For Breakfast (Malicious Damage, 2004) is a five-cd box-set career retrospective.

Hosanna From The Basements Of Hell (Cooking Vinyl, 2006) is basically a heavy metal album in disguise.

The original line-up (Jaz Coleman, Geordie Walker, Paul Ferguson and Youth) recorded Absolute Dissent (Spinefarm, 2010) in a more conventional style ranging from the hard-rock of Fresh Fever From The Sky to the atmospheric ballad The Raven King.

MMXII (2012) was their tribute to the apocalypse predicted by those who studied the Mayan calendar (ending in 2012) but the music rarely achieved the required climax (the nine-minute Pole Shift comes close) and often slipped into kitschy synth-pop.

Walker died in 2023.