SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: KILLING JOKE – LORD OF CHAOS

Killing Joke
Lord Of Chaos
Spinefarm Records

How lucky we are. Killing Joke are recording their 16^th or 17^th album overall, the fourth since the original lineup of Jaz Coleman, Geordie Walker, Paul Ferguson, and Youth reunited in 2010. Lord of Chaos is a four-song EP intended to make the seven years and counting between albums seem shorter and an excuse to play a two-week UK tour. Formed in London’s Notting Hill in 1979, these sexagenarians made the heaviest music of their careers after turning 40; this band inspires for maintaining its intensity, artistic clarity, and singularity into their 60s.

Killing Joke rightly celebrate their longevity on “Big Buzz,” which originally appeared on their last album, Pylon (2015). “Big Buzz (Motorcade Mix)” imagines taking a victory lap of life’s successes with our earthen family and all who have departed this world from our extended family in attendance. The first time hearing the four-to-the-floor dance beat and bombastic synth bass lead will be almost as jarring as the assertion that this disco crap actually improves upon the original. The new Motorcade Mix permits an emo-like earnestness, a surprising new flavor of gratitude. God bless them.

The chord progression of the title track closely resembles that of Pylon’s “I Am the Virus.” Let this one slide. There is a simplicity and a sadness underneath the noise of armies. “Our rise and fall, our stewardship, our temper tantrums/
Our art, our excellence, our hubris, poverty and greed.” The one-note-then-sustained-squiggly-synth intro will trigger New Order fans expecting to hear the rest of “60 Miles an Hour.” Next, microtonal alchemist Walker’s walls of chugging riffage and Ferguson’s intermittent floor tom fills sidestep the galloping percussion concussion, making “Lord of Chaos” immediately recognizable as Killing Joke in their Motörhead motorik mode.

One might assume the other new track, “Total,” appears on the EP because it doesn’t fit in with the rest of the forthcoming album. If correct, then the album will sound more like Mastodon and Napalm Death and less like today’s attributed guest YouTuber supposedly a fan’s description source, “a watered-down Swans with touches of Skinny Puppy.” Swans, need to check them out. “Total” dials down the heaviness on the verses until the chorus reveals its metallic center in a payoff for both sides of the aisle. Once again, Coleman sings the verses in his clean voice, and while it’s nowhere near as full as his dynamic, forceful vocals on their 80s albums, it’s enough to remind us that this man could sing. It totally matches the song’s post-punk flavor, flecked with bits of alliterative, moody psychedelia via keyboards. Ferguson’s precise, restrained drumming is the best thing about “Total,” masterful communication received.

“Delete in Dub” is bassist Youth’s dub treatment of another Pylon track, “Delete.” Killing Joke flirted with dub in the early days, and since then Youth has treated that icy, rubbery derivative of reggae as an expansive force. “Delete In Dub” sounds like a 1997 jungle track, punctuated of course by those echoey, syncopated, triplety drum fills always kicking up in dub. Absolutely no resemblance to “Delete,” and it’s a good thing. If this signals a dub excursion on the new album, any excursion is needed; now is the time to shake up the formula. Go see Killing Joke while you still can. North Americans, Europeans, pray for gatherings to herald the new record; for wisdom and peace.

Artist Links