Killing Joke: 21st Century Masters

There’s no shame or shade intended when I say the enduring quality of Killing Joke albums this century is surprising. After all, this is a band that fled from the UK to Iceland in 1982 to avoid nuclear war. In that context, it’s a surprise there’s even a world left to enjoy Killing Joke in.

The band was formed in 1979 by Jaz Coleman, a well-travelled, classically-trained musical wunderkind, and Paul Ferguson, a pummeling drummer who shared Coleman’s interest in the occult and imminent global collapse. Ads in music weeklies brought along guitarist Geordie Walker and bassist Martin “Youth” Glover, who also wanted to sound like tanks rolling through the ruins of a once thriving culture, but with a beat. By the time of their self-titled 1980 debut album, they’d achieved a synth-tinged sound that could be slotted with “post-punk” while as crushing as the heaviest metal. The industrial music revolution was already underway, but songs like “Wardance” (the title alone!) established how experimental noise enthusiasts could blow away headbangers and pogo punks, rather than just annoy them.

Even when Coleman missed a Top Of The Pops appearance to flee the bomb and Glover decided that was quite enough, Killing Joke didn’t lose a beat commercially through the early ‘80s, finding a more humoring bassist in Paul Raven, building its international cult and having a bonafide UK Top 20 hit ballad with 1985’s “Love Like Blood.” Eventually, Coleman’s pop and classical ambitions led to Ferguson bolting and the jaw-dropping trainwreck of 1988’s Outside The Gate. But only two years later, Coleman accepted that Killing Joke was for violently screaming and wardancing under runny facepaint next to a stoic Walker, and established a remarkable second career as an orchestral composer and conductor of albums like Kashmir: Symphonic Led Zeppelin and Pacifica: Ambient Sketches. Meanwhile, Glover got back into the line-up despite a recording career that includes producing The Verve’s Urban Hymns and starting an experimental ambient duo with Paul McCartney called The Fireman (heard of it? They’ve made three albums!).

Though the band never split, 2003’s Killing Joke came an unprecedented seven years after their last album, with both Raven and Glover credited on bass and Dave frikkin’ Grohl on drums, partly an acknowledgment that Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” totally jacked KJ’s “Eighties.” The band’s been critically hailed and consistently kicking ass ever since, Paul Ferguson reconnecting with his bandmates at Raven’s funeral in 2007 and restoring the original line-up from 2010’s Absolute Dissent on. The band dropped a new single this month to celebrate selling out Royal Albert Hall, so I hope that means a new album might be coming too.

Along with that second self-titled album, in 2003 Coleman also produced Nigel Kennedy & The Kroke Band and composed a concerto named Music Of The Quantum with help from his brother, a professor of theoretical physics. Considering the breadth of Coleman’s musical interests, it defies belief that Killing Joke’s music remains so vital while so monolithic. How can an expert in Arabic quarter tones who’s arranged a Sarah Brightman album and served as composer in residence for orchestras on multiple continents still get his jollies hollering over a barrage of guitar, drums and synth like a darkwave Lemmy Kilmeister? It’s not like he’s curdled into some embarrassing Facebook conspiracy theorist who needs to hawk decades-old hits for the greenbacks. The best answer I can come up with is that, despite all the information and experience obtained, the manifesto he and Ferguson wrote over 40 years ago is no less potent and relevant as the world continues to teeter over the precipice. But where once he assumed it would all be over before he saw 30, he now knows the preservation of humanity and liberty requires constant vigilance and affirmation. And he must deeply treasure the camaraderie and collaboration with his bandmates and audience (the songwriting has always been credited to the group). To quote “Big Buzz” from 2015’s Pylon, “still laughing after all these years/ tears of laughter/ tears of pride.” The joke’s still funny.

The band’s classic period is well served by the compilation Laugh? I Nearly Bought One! (it even has their finest song, “Pssyche,” the bombastic boogie B-side to “Wardance”), so I’m using my 21st Century Masters conceit to promote their last five albums though, unlike AC/DC's last four, there’s plenty more worth hearing from them. I could have easily included three or four songs per album instead of two (I left off “Big Buzz”!), but the goal was to sell them rather than sate you. Honour the fire! And buy physical media!

1. "Absolute Dissent" (Absolute Dissent, 2010)
2. "Hosannas From The Basements Of Hell" (Hosannas From The Basement Of Hell, 2006)
3. "Rapture" (MMXII, 2012)
4. "Implant" (Killing Joke, 2003)
5. "In Excelsis" (Absolute Dissent, 2010)
6. "The Lightbringer" (Hosannas From The Basements Of Hell, 2006)
7. "You'll Never Get To Me" (Killing Joke, 2003)
8. "Delete" (Pylon, 2015)
9. "Trance" (MMXII, 2012)
10. "Into The Unknown" (Pylon, 2015)