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Rating: Malignant music from Killing Joke. Sounds from a desperate world, where industrial waste no longer allows the sun to shine and where even children have lost their innocence. Who knows what will happen beyond the wall the kids on the cover are fleeing from. A joke that kills? One of the most innovative and extreme bands of the English new wave, Killing Joke will leave with this album an evil seed in the rock world that will germinate multiple times and in various forms in the time to come.
The culprits of all this are Jaz Coleman (vocals and keyboards), Kevin Walker (guitar), Martin Glover (bass), and Paul Ferguson (drums). The twisted minds of the four, and especially Coleman, conceive eight harsh metallic tracks with often convulsive and neurotic rhythms. Killing Joke's debut is dark, immersed in a toxic haze. The tracks exude unhealthy vapors. This sensation is given not only by the abrasive sound of the guitars but by a targeted and strictly functional use of keyboards as well.
Completing the work are Coleman's apocalyptic lyrics. Tracks like "Requiem" and "Wardance" are sculpted in the rock of the era, also noteworthy are "The Wait" and "Complications" in a setlist that, however, is a bit uneven in quality. The four will also go down in history for their live shows. Without them, bands like Nine Inch Nails or Ministry would never have existed, and that must be acknowledged. Five stars for an album that at the age of twenty-four is now a classic.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Requiem (03:44)
Man watching video
The bomb keeps on ticking.
He doesnt know why
He's just cattle for slaughter.
The Requiem
The Requiem
The Requieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeem
When the meaningful words
When they cease to function
When there's nothing to say
When will they start plotting against you
The requiem
The requiem
The requieeeeeeeeeeeeeem
Only a hint of religion
Uncensored truths for the novelty.
the sound of breaking glas
this is a reflection
The requiem
The requiem
The requiem
The
02 Wardance (03:50)
The atmosphere's strange
Out on the town
Music for pleasure
It's not music no more
Music to dance to
Music to move
This is music to march to
IT'S a war dance
A war dance
Look at the victim
Scrawled on the wall
You know the the reason
Outside the door
You got something
Nasty in your mind
Trying to get out
IT'S a war dance
A war dance
We walk round the pitch
Honesty is sick
Try to be honest
Look what you get
The food runs short
And then the money talks
One way out
YOUR PREMONITION IS CORRECT
A war dance
03 Tomorrow's World (05:31)
Picture - sent back live
Picture - the golden age
Letter - on your doorstep
Called up - for your country
Never no i don't wanna - no
Horror - don't let me go on
Mommy - they'll take his pain away
Carry us - face the music
Called up - for your country
Never no i don't wanna - no
Take - aim - and - fire
05 The Wait (03:45)
My [tiv's] changing
Day to day
The fiery kisses
Fast decay
I look up the river
My firm thoughts down
The block they've poisoned
Gotta sit tight
The wait
Odd awakening
The silence grows
Screams outside
Distortion shows
New jump force
Bad bad billys
It's just another [vine]
Of distorted greed
The wait
06 Complications (03:08)
See the sun turn green
From my penthouse window
It's different now
Because you got no shelter
Alienation
By experimentation
Enjoy yourself
This is the new age
Complication
Ransom the birth
Of a new destruction
It's different now
It's what we always wanted
Alienation
Self-destruct
At the count of ten
Complication
See the sun turn green
From my penthouse window
It's different now
Because you got no shelter
Alienation
Enjoy yourself
This is your new age
Complication
08 Primitive (03:36)
Primitive feeling
Primitive way
Getting closer
To the primitive day
Intuition
Wherever it goes
The primitive day
The primitive way
Primitive feeling
Primitive way
Getting closer
To the primitive day
Follow the feeling
Wherever it goes
The primitive day
The primitive way
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Other reviews
By kosmogabri
This album causes chills down the spine, exciting yet penetrating tremors that instill anxiety.
Jaz Coleman, like a heralding archangel, has returned from oblivion not to tell us jokes, but to warn us that the Apocalypse has already begun.
By iuppiter2
"The album is indeed to be considered on the edge between multiple styles (hard-rock, punk, gothic-rock, electronics) and thus it has a tremendous impact on the generation of new wave and pop bands of the entire eighties decade."
"Like all great records, this one always sounds 'new' and utterly enjoyable. Listen to it to believe."
By zigu
Ten songs that follow the same claustrophobic and pounding rhythm, trapping us in a room terrified, with bleeding hands over our ears banging our heads against a wall of sound that overwhelms us.
If you need a charge and there’s no orzo bimbo at home, this is the right album, just don’t abuse it or at least don’t drive while listening.
