KILLING JOKE

With their gothic industrial grind and doom-mongering lyrics it was perhaps inevitable that Killing Joke fell within the shadow cast by Joy Division, who had just ceased to exist at the time Killing Joke's debut album came out. Killing Joke went on to make a name for themselves on their own terms, particularly with their influence spreading to some of the biggest bands of the following era, including Metallica and Nirvana (with Kurt Cobain famously ripping off one of their riffs for "Come As You Are"), but even so they sound, on their debut at least, a little like Joy Division-lite. Although the gothic industrial atmosphere created by the band can clearly be heard in the material of, for instance, Nine Inch Nails on the whole the arrangements tend to be less innovative and distinctive as Joy Division's. Similarly, Jaz Coleman's vocals fail to match the intensity of Curtis's, even if his oscillation between understated, flat vocals and over-the-top theatrics makes for an interesting approach. Of course, it would be mighty hard for any band to match Joy Division's brilliance and I am sure Killing Joke and their fans would be quick to ridicule the suggestion they were in any way attempting to trade in on the former's innovations. The debut certainly comes across as a strong start for the band and with a uniformly distinct sound. Even on a solely instrumental track ("Bloodsport") the band are confident enough in their abilities to conjure a piece intriguing and progressive enough to hold one's attention as well as any vocal-based song. One way at least the band are distinct from Joy Division is in the post-apocalyptic angle they indulge in, with many of the rather impenetrable lyrics creating images of futuristic death and destruction. This is well matched with many of the arrangements but particularly the seething "Wardance" and "The Wait" which carry the threat of violence in both the metallic grooves and Coleman's dramatically evil vocals. Although I gather their material got more groove-based on later releases, developing into an evil equivalent of Talking Heads, the majority of tracks on this release depend heavily on either a slow or fast metallic grind. Their success, however, is equally mixed. The opening "Requiem" is a low tempo start but sufficient in its apocalyptic stride to make for an atmospheric introduction. In contrast, though, "Tomorrow's World" and "$.036" drone on at a snail's pace without any distinguishing features. Indeed, "Complications" supports the thesis that quick is best with it being the shortest song on the album and also one of the catchiest. The album as a whole is not as ground breaking as it perhaps might have been had a quartet of Mancunians not been knocking around a few years immediately prior to its release but, nonetheless, it is an impressively cohesive and robust debut. With the band's distinctive blend of gothic atmospherics and an industrial metallic grind it is not hard to see how they came to influence so many important bands.

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