Label: Spine Farm
Release date: 25 March, 2022
Killing Joke emerge to soundtrack another end of the world.
Killing Joke have come a long way since their early post-punk days of the late seventies, becoming much heavier along the way, but always with an apocalyptic vision (indeed, lead singer Jaz Coleman regularly predicts the end of the world – one day he will be right), and with the original line-up restored in the past years their blistering stage shows remain some of the most powerful on the planet. Perhaps their diversifying keeps them together, Coleman has worked with classical musicians and conducted symphony orchestras and was made Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture for his contribution to contemporary music, whilst bassist Youth has worked with everyone from Paul MacCartney and Kate Bush to Penny Rimbaud.
The aptly titled {Lord Of Chaos} is their first new release since 2015’s {Pylon}, albeit that two of the four songs are re-mixes from {Pylon}, and the new songs could easily fit on that album – they’re heavy, with nuances.
The title track opens the EP with a long drawn-out chord like a warning siren. Then the chugging chugging of the guitar, bass and drum which are deep and heavy. Coleman’s voice is strangely angelic and ambient at times, creating a contrast as it slides over the raucous guitars, but at other times sounding possessed by some demonic force.
Next up, “Total”, has a tribal drumbeat and a scratching off kilter guitar, sounding like a storm across a post-apocalyptic landscape, before Coleman’s voice adds daylight. The chorus is heavy, the guitars like a razor slicing through the night.
Killing Joke have always enjoyed their re-mixes, particularly dub, which goes right back to their Ladbrooke Grove days. “Big Buzz (Motorcade Mix)” is here turned into an electro beat, and dark techno groove, with Coleman’s voice melancholic and wistful. Whilst “Delete In Dub (Youth’s Disco 45 Dystopian Dub)” – becomes a trance like dub that curls into your mind like smoke and blasts the synapses, rather than the raucous rock out of the original. Youth probably does dub better than any other white man
I doubt bands can soundtrack dark times like Killing Joke, who exist in that part of music collections like a nightmare, reminding us that the world is a dark place ready to implode at any moment. The positive side to Killing Joke’s message has always been an openness to spirituality and a willingness to embrace the world, just as we’re destroying it.
“I’ve never known anything like the time we are living in now; not since the Cuban Missile crisis but now in comparison we have multiple flash points.
{Lord of Chaos} is about complex systems failure, when technology overloads and A.I. misreads the enemies intentions.” – Dr Jaz Coleman.
It’s good to have new music from the Lords Of Chaos.
This review first appeared on Spectrum Culture March 2022
Mark Ray 