0123. Killing Joke
Killing Joke
Another of the primordial post-punk / alternative bands and just like the others it doesn't sound a lot like the others.
The album gives me a bit of a scare as it begins with what at first sounds like the worst kind of techno-bassline, but the synth quickly gets devoured by the guitar and goes uphill from there.
Generally it's noisy, it's industrial, it's quite good (and now my ears are ringing), but the instrumental Bloodsport feels like a filler or unfinished track (the structure of it would have gained a lot by adding vocals).
It could very well be used as the soundtrack to one of Warren Ellis' graphic novels.
Fact: in the research for this album I came across a bunch of reviews claiming this was very influenced by heavy metal, but the only place I can hear anything even half-obvious metal is in Bloodsports guitar riff. Am I deaf or are everybody else wrong? I prefer to believe the latter.
Fun fact: Just two years after the release of this album the band moved to Iceland to escape the oncoming Apocalypse which, according to their timeline, was due sometime around '82. When nothing happened they moved back to England.
