» Listings for 2023

1. 2023 Albums Thing 213 - Killing Joke “Killing Joke (2003)“

   Posted on 9:05am Friday 10th Nov 2023

   A lot of artists release eponymous albums. Not many artists release two eponymous albums. Killing Joke’s debut album in 1983 was titled “Killing Joke” and so was this, their 11th studio album released in 2003. The copy I own is a 2021 re-issue on lovely Purple vinyl. Now there are many reasons for getting excited about a new Killing Joke album, it’s new music for a start off and the anticipation of whether Geordie can add to his stunning collection of pummelling riffs being a couple I can think of. It seems a lot of people got excited about this one purely because some bloke who used to be in a 3 piece band from Seattle played drums on it. Oh well, I guess there’s a chance that some new KJ converts were made.

   Let’s get something else cleared up, some people describe this as KJ’s “heavy metal” album…it’s not, OK ? Heavy Metal is mindless fretw@nk concerned with dragons, girls, drinking and singing about itself. This is Killing Joke a band with a mission, a purpose and something to say, about as different from the schoolboy themes of Heavy Metal as it’s possible to get. 

   A thing that likely doesn’t get levelled at Killing Joke very often is that, occasionally, between all the brain crushing riffage they write bloody good pop songs and this albums “You’ll Never Get To Me” is one of them. It wasn’t issued as a single but it should have been, it’s got hit written all over it to my ears (I do appreciate that my ears are significantly different to most other people’s and this wouldn’t be the first time something I thought had hit written all over it disappeared without a trace).Ultimately though this is a Killing Joke album, they’re really not going to move far from what they do and do very well. 

   I suppose I have to address the drumming. Bassist Youth had met Dave Grohl, a long time KJ fan, while KJ were sans drummer and he expressed a desire to play on their album. The original idea was to to have 3 different drummers on the record, Grohl, John Dolmayan (System Of A Down) and Danny Carey (Tool), but when Dave Grohl heard the songs he wanted to do all of it. In a highly back to front move the band recorded the album (presumably with a drum machine) and Grohl recorded the drums last, in one 5 day session in LA. Band and drummer never played together. I don’t know whether it’s my low opinion of Grohl and his meagre “talents” that colours my thoughts here, but it sounds like it. When all is taken into account he really ain’t no Big Paul Ferguson.

   “Killing Joke (2023]” is heavy, loud and filled with a righteous fury about the state of the world we’ve built and are responsible for. Rolling Stone magazine rated it a 2 out of 5 saying “all the humorless gloom and doom feels oppressive after a while” which is a better explanation for why I’ve never read Rolling Stone magazine than anything I could write. 

   You'll Never Get To Me - https://youtu.be/54t9Qw4EEEM?si=b_BVp4M32WZ9Hl6F

2. 2023 Albums Thing 212 - Killing Joke “Pandemonium”

   Posted on 8:50am Thursday 9th Nov 2023

   “Pandemonium’ is Killing Joke’s ninth studio album, it’s also the first album of theirs that I bought. By 1994 I’d seen them live 4 times, I had a couple of their singles but I’d never bought one of their albums. On hearing the title track from this one I finally made a purchase.

   I watched the Killing Joke documentary, “The Death And Resurrection Show”, a couple of times while confined to quarters during the Covid lockdowns. Apart from proving that they are all genuinely bonkers, there was some great footage of them recording parts of this album inside the Great Pyramid of Giza (a feat that took not a little bribery of Egyptian officials it seems). The vocal tracks for title track “Pandemonium", "Exorcism" and "Millennium" were recorded in the King's Chamber at Giza. If you watch the documentary you’ll hear how some very strange things happened inside that chamber, the batteries to power the equipment that should have lasted 8 to 10 hours were drained in 15 minutes due, allegedly, to some weird properties of the pyramid ! You get some bands putting cartoons of the Pyramids on their album covers but the Joke actually went inside the greatest of them and recorded, now that IS some bonkers heavy shit.

   This album has a more sequenced feel about it, there’s more technology at play, it’s more industrial in style than “Extremities…” 4 years earlier. It’s evident from the off on the song “Pandemonium”. Geordie lays waste to all around him while Jaz sings of supernatural aeons, nuclear families and the pipes of Pan. “Exorcism” is flat out scary and I gotta admit I have no clue what they are singing about (“Behind the illusion of reality, Are forces that speak to me, We will draw them out”) I tend to lose myself in the rhythmic onslaught they are laying down. You get no pause to draw breath as “Millennium” is next and this ain’t no take on the fat dancer from Stoke. Jaz Coleman was obviously expecting some great revelation as we entered the 21st century, I wonder if he found what he wanted?

   That trio of songs recorded in the Great Pyramid were all released as singles…No hits were forthcoming…although there are those moments where they are capable of making great “pop” songs. “Jana” may have Jaz roaring out the chorus but the verses are reminiscent of “Night Time”s lighter sound. That is more than made up for by the following “Whiteout”, to describe it as intense is an understatement. No one does stuff like this but Killing Joke.

   I really have no idea what the theme of this album is, I don’t really need to know. I just love to get lost in the intensity and violence of this music. Conversely I know from previous records that Killing Joke are good people, bonkers, but good people, I may not know the themes but I do know there’s nothing contentious in here. Those three songs recorded in the Great Pyramid really set this record up as something special. Killing Joke are a very acquired taste, this isn’t light and airy it’s raw and, in places, disturbing. As the saying goes “Sometimes music can soothe and heal…but fuck that, this is Killing Joke”

   Exorcism - https://youtu.be/_UIHti9ptjA?si=snmyWPIIxf6jiNPG

3. 2023 Albums Thing 211 - Killing Joke “Extremities, Dirt And Various Repressed Emotions”

   Posted on 9:30am Wednesday 8th Nov 2023

   This album starts with the song that I was in attendance for the filming of the video that first time I saw Killing Joke, “Money Is Not Our God”. It’s one of the songs that, if I was asked to play something to somebody who had no idea about Killing Joke, would be at the forefront of my thinking. 

   This is more like the Killing Joke I am used to. “Night Time” is great but it’s a little bit KJ-lite. Here we are back to battering ram riffs, earthquake drums and furious, slightly manic vocals. Lyrically it’s very much about raging at capitalism, consumerism, people as property, workers inside a system stacked against them, how humanity needs a return to a more natural existence, it’s pretty intense stuff.

   “I turn and face the sun

   Then all my troubles fall behind me like a shadow

   In solitude, Solitude”

   “Money Is Not Our God” sets the scene and subject matter for the whole album. Drummer Martin Atkins (PiL, the Damage Manual, Pigface and now the Joke) and bass-man Youth lay down a pounding foundation. Geordie Walker string scrapes into rolling guitar riff. Jaz Coleman’s voice ranges from normality at the start to downright deranged by the time we reach the chorus. 

   “Do you grovel to your master? Do you beg like a dog?

   First things first, repeat to yourself

   AHHH MONEY!, Money is not our GOD!”

   He’s raging against hoarding wealth (“So busy trying to make a living i forget about life”) and advocating a return to nature and an appreciation of the natural world 

   “MINE! The best things in life are free

   MINE! I own the beach and the blazing sunset

   MINE! I own the waves and the fresh air

   MINE! I drink the milk of the stars in this beautiful moment

   Say to yourself…ALL THESE THINGS ARE MINE!”

   All very hippy for these heavy, heavy Punk rockers. “Age Of Greed” does exactly what the title suggests, a driving backing track over which Jaz screams his manifesto (“Your money, my time, Your stinking industrial bathwater, my wine”). “Inside The Termite Mound” likens people working their lives away to Termites serving the mound. “Solitude” has him wantimg to be separated from the modern world to find his peace alone.

   If you are looking for melody and light you’ll not find it here. If you want fast and furious coupled to righteous ire step this way.

   Money Is Not Our God - https://youtu.be/0vVDWQlHLOE?si=A4T0Kd7VXN3q-QyQ