Killing Joke
Revelations

THE REVIEW

It was the dawn of 1982, and for the visionary Jaz Coleman and the faithful Geordie, there were pressing matters knocking at the door that put everything else on the back burner. There was no more time to worry about emulating the underground success of their beginnings, or even just locking themselves in a basement to find the right hallucinations worthy of "What This For…". The Apocalypse, and with it the end of the world, were near; so said Jaz Coleman, a character from another time, a contemporary shaman forced to live in an era not his own, but ready to catalyze its symptoms of decay and foresee its possible outcomes, lucid in his apparent madness. Jaz chose Iceland, a wild and inhospitable land, but for this very reason primordial and unspoiled, as a refuge from which to observe humanity's destruction and lay the foundations for a new purified civilization. We will never know to what extent they believed in these drastic eventualities, but to rashly reduce it all to pure allegory, considering this messianic retreat as an expression of a simple desire for isolation, would mean never having read or heard anything about Jaz Coleman and Killing Joke. One thing is certain: what was almost entirely conceived in Iceland, under the influence of those hallucinatory ideas, is one of the darkest and most difficult albums in their entire repertoire. Lyrically, the various themes paint a singular scenario: the familiar metropolitan images we are used to are blurred and deformed. Once the cover of silence is lifted, here are landscapes no longer reassuring with immense buildings placed on a pedestal, while rows of clones march in line toward a buzzing sound, searching for the promised land, the Land of Milk and Honey; in this race, whoever strikes first will have more chances to prevail, but perhaps there's no more time, because above all the sentence has already been written. The sonic ingredients are practically the same as in previous works: acidic and distorted guitars as only Geordie can do, bass and drums united in a single tribal pulse, and vocals now filtered, now clear, but always on the brink of human. What distinguishes "Revelations", however, is the clearly perceptible will to make no compromises with anything or anyone. Musically, it evokes a granite block whose pieces are firmly set together and not easily separated and distinguished, at least not after many listens.

It starts with "The Hum", a splendid anthem manifesto of the Killing Joke-thought: a futuristic funeral march, punctuated by razor cuts, crawling aimlessly and dissolving into a swarm of industrial noises. Immediately following is the onslaught of "Empire Song", compact and tight, also one of the signature tracks of the early period. "We Have Joy" slightly slows the pace, but it should already be clear that there isn't much room for moments of catharsis on this album. The initial strums of "Chop Chop" are illusory, immediately overwhelmed by a cyber-industrial twist that pulls no punches. The frenetic rhythms continue with "The Pandys are coming", where the rhythm section builds something unimaginable until then, and the guitar slashes fit in perfectly, while Jaz chants psalms surrounded by monotonous and chant-like choruses: perhaps one of their craziest tracks ever, much loved by the die-hards and insufferable for the uninitiated. There is no time to catch your breath: "Chapter III" immediately sets things straight with a frenetic dance that will then be picked up, revised, and improved in the more successful "Song And Dance". A factory mechanism then launches "Have A Nice Day" into attack, dense and relentless, consistent in every way with the spirit of the album. "Land Of Milk And Honey" surprises, almost reaching hardcore, but with such an oblique slant that doubts about the authenticity of the source are immediately quashed. Even more surprising, and opening up debates of all sorts, is the sudden calm that descends in "Good Samaritan": a calm you wouldn't expect, after nearly half an hour of sonic walls and frantic rhythms. Now, in a rarefied atmosphere, marked only by weak guitar strums, we can see a hallucinated Jaz walking barefoot through the ruins of a devastated city, murmuring softly the miseries of a civilization that no longer knows who or what to believe in. Follow him, he is the Good Samaritan; listen to him, and he will show you the way to follow. Has the Apocalypse already come? Not yet, but the scum of the world that ignored the warning should prepare: The closure is entrusted to "Dregs", "dregs" indeed. One by one, the instruments take their commanding positions, then launch into a malicious maelstrom of distortions, tribalisms, and poisoned rants that is the worthy summation and seal of all the work.

At the end of "Revelations", one is dazed, if not downright shocked, as if they had indeed witnessed the Apocalypse, perhaps wrapped in the coils of a hurricane. But was it really the Apocalypse that Jaz feared and evoked among these sinister grooves? Though not lacking in numerous references to occultism, "Revelations" might stop before the apocalyptic celebration, and instead pose as a warning: that everyone should stop in time and become aware, even before the material destruction, of the moral one that rages in the streets and daily life. Perhaps, in this way, humanity could avoid catastrophe and lay the foundations for a new line of conduct. The "Revelations" might announce another advent, intended as the birth of something new… Look at the ribbon on the side of the cover: could it signify the arrival of a new civilization? Well, if so, it would surely raise to the sky a banner with the name "Killing Joke".