Killing Joke - MMXII

Is it possible for a band that's been together for over thirty years (give or take few line up meltdowns) to still be coming up with the goods?

On the evidence of 2010’s Absolute Dissent, which saw the first recordings with the original line up since Revelations (1982) then the answer has to be ‘yes’, as anyone whose witnessed the band live recently will already know.

But can they repeat the trick with MMXII?

Trailed as being their ‘end of times’ album, it could be argued it’s the album Killing Joke have been threatening to make since Jaz Coleman did a runner to Iceland back in 1982 precipitating the end of the original line up amid dark mutterings of an impending apocalypse. 

Which is a theme Jaz has returned to on more than one occasion since then, although recently, seemingly calmer and more stable than in the past, he’s moderated his views claiming we stand on the edge of a new way of living, rather than the end, lights out.

Residents of Greece for example, might even think he’s on to something...

So what does all that mean for MMXII?

Well if Absolute Dissent was a pop album – bear with me here! – each song standing alone, fully formed, working in their own right, then MMXII is – whisper it – as close as Killing Joke will probably ever get to a ‘concept album’.  The big themes are indeed all there, the future of the planet, (‘Pole Shift’) the bankruptcy of rapacious capitalism (‘Corporate Elite’), nano technology (‘Colony Collapse’) solar storms (‘Glitch’)... I could go on.

In fact, it just feels like the world is catching up with Killing Joke and more by accident than design they’ve produced an album that is as close to a state of the world analysis as they will ever get.  With the global economy in a tailspin to match earth’s eco-system, Killing joke in 2012 are right on the money (even if it is in rapidly devaluing Euros!)

So the theory’s good.  What about the practical?

The foreboding keyboard intro to ‘Pole Shift’ immediately sets the tone, before slipping into a mid-paced reflective groove as Jaz ponders the impacts of a polar magnetic reverse and then just as the spell is set, the band kick into a furious driving chorus, before repeating the trick.  ‘Pole Shift’ in interesting on a couple of levels, there are enough ideas in there for 2 or 3 songs, Geordie’s guitar playing is far from his trade mark sheet metal assault, picking out a subtle refrain on the verse, so it’s a very un-typical Killing Joke song.

But it works.  Although personally I’d have put it mid-way through the album, that might just be because it worked well as the highlight of the set on their recent tour, but it does have an epic quality that is almost too involved for an opener.

Just to continue that argument, second track FEMA Camp, complete with an almost Pandemonium-esque lead intro from Geordie, would make an excellent opener.  It’s a loud, incessant lumbering beast of a song.  Perfect for evoking the nightmare of a national emergency – “It’s a time of unrest and your rights are suspended” – or the reality if you were in New Orleans when the levees broke.

By halfway through the irresistible ‘Rapture’, driven along by the violence of Paul Fergusson’s precision drum assault, you know this is Killing Joke in full flight and they retain a power in their delivery that few bands can match.

In general the album maintains this consistently high standard.  Although switching ‘Colony Collapse’ for ‘Penny Drops’, the ‘B’ side (does such a thing exist anymore?) of the single, would have made the album stronger and quite what the excellent DAF tinged ‘New Uprising’ is doing as an iTunes exclusive is beyond me.

But minor quibbles aside it is a great addition to the Killing Joke cannon and sees the band trying new things, Geordie again defying expectations with some understated picking on ‘Primobile’, ‘Glitch’ kicking off with a riff that gives more than a nod to ‘Intravenous’ (or possibly ‘Kings & Queens’) before veering into a rant about the consequences of a geomagnetic storm causing a technology shut down;

‘Where’s my light, my water, my flight across the pond?

Where’s my summer holiday? What the hell’s gone wrong?

And talking of nods to the back catalogue, ‘Trance’ features a lolloping up and down the scales bassline that could only come from the same place a ‘Pssyche’.

One other track that deserves a mention is ‘In Cythera’.  The one track that doesn’t fit the end of times agenda.  At least not on a global scale, being that rare thing, a personal Killing Joke song.  You can read it as being about death or the end of a relationship, but as Jaz has publicly stated on more than one occasion, all four members of the band have now lost their fathers and it’s hard to this as not being a reflection of that.  A strangely uplifting song, despite the subject matter.

Taken together MMXII is certainly the more serious, complex and ambitious big brother to Absolute Dissent and is at least its equal, if not better. 

It might not top their debut, Revelations, Extremities or Pandemonium – depending on where you came in with the Joke and where you stand on their back catalogue.  But MMXII is more than enough for any band at this stage of their career and will be one of the stand lout albums of the year.     Throw in the ability to turn in thundering live shows and you have a band that remains pretty much unique, even in 2012.