Review: Killing Joke, Brixton Academy, 4.11.16

For some time, the legendary Killing Joke have been ageing like a fine wine, albeit one spiked with nerve poison. Defiant in the face of the natural aging process, the band – possibly in reaction to volcano-throated frontman Jaz Coleman’s doomsaying, prophetic lyrics actually being more relevant by the day – have only gotten louder, darker and better as the years have passed.

It is a good fortune and seemingly never-ending winning run only afforded to the truly special and prosperous, with fellow national treasures Iron Maiden being an immediate example – also having a back catalogue so crammed with gems a truly perfect setlist is impossible.

Nevertheless, they give it a bloody good go. From the minute the lumbering, shuddering nightmare of The Hum fills the equally historic Brixton Academy, the ‘Joke give a faultless lesson in how to keep any heel-snapping protégés away. Indeed, when they finally hang it up it’ll be hard to find an act with quite the same weird allure or blazing intensity.

1980s hit and deathless set-staple Love Like Blood follows, throwing back to their historic gothy-pop period and reminding us all of their expeditions into varying genre territories: the enduring, endearing result is, for the uninitiated, a nerve-racking proto-something or other that’s too heavy to be punk, too nuanced to be industrial, and not quite metal either, yet they outwit many of the greatest proponents of these genres by (still) being stubbornly uncategorisable and seamlessly blending them together, without losing sight of what constitutes a tune.

Stringsman ‘Geordie’ Walker, the immovable object against which Jaz Coleman’s unstoppable force collides, provides great textural cathedrals of sound with an utterly unmistakable and sought-after guitar tone, making the noise of thousands from only one pair of hands.

Legendary producer and bassist Youth is almost his complete opposite, stage left: barefoot, in a kimono, and grinning his teeth out, and why not? Most bands never make it past the big 3-0, most never manage to retain or reform their original lineup and sound this fantastic (the tragic passing of longtime bassist Paul Raven having preceded this, however, with the band taking a long hard look at their own mortalities and making the decision).

But Killing Joke are not ‘most bands’, and in a world of absolute fucking anaemic grey-arsed musical tedium they have only become more vital and desperately needed. New Cold War, from last year’s barnstorming Pylon album, ably explores its title’s subject matter like an essay set to music, with Walker supplying chilly atmospherics. They somersault into territories other bands refuse to enter.



Underpinning all of this sits the formidable ‘Big’ Paul Ferguson, a mesmerising sight during the rabbit-hole tumble of Unspeakable and, well, at any given point during the gig. It’s a testament to the man’s dizzying tub-thwacking that he can command your attention even with a pair of fire dancers blowing flames within singeing distance of Youth’s dreads.

The generous running time amounts to nearly twenty songs, and while some stones are left unturned, there’s room for the likes of Eighties, the venerable Turn to Red, underrated dancey banger European Super State, while failsafe early ‘uns like The Wait and Change square off against the furious Dawn of the Hive and I Am the Virus.

A delicious hat-trick of The Death & Resurrection Show, Wardance and a multi-dimensional Pandemonium ensure a winning send-off to a night of energy, dancing, sore necks and smiles all round.

Killing Joke, after thirty-plus years in the game, are still impossibly unique and utterly unsolvable. We shall not see their like again.

Turn to red: the legendary Killing Joke slay Birmingham

There are bands, and there are cults. There are concerts, and there are religious experiences. There are fanbases, and there are devout followers. 

There is an endless void, and there is Killing Joke.

Those wise enough to make this distinction and spend All Hallows' Eve crammed into Birmingham's Institute enjoyed a rollicking set of the Joke's special brand of indescribable purifying noise: cackling over the end of the world and presenting landscapes drawn from a sonic palette so indefatigably punishing and relentlessly brutal that it is, in its own way, unerringly beautiful. 

Touring in support of their fifteenth album, the shit-kicking Pylon, Killing Joke - returned to their original line-up after bassist Paul Raven's untimely passing, with a rare Absent Friends dedicated to him - take to the stage then take the stage itself, their autonomous zone for the night. 

Ploughing through an exploratory career-hopping set, due reverence is given to their position as venerable statesmen, with the tunes to match: a suitably boinging Eighties is judderingly relevant, despite being older than some of the crowd (hello). Pandemonium closes the set, after the likes of Turn to Red going toe-to-toe with the assault of newer cuts. 

Theirs is a tribal-industrial lot - if forced to categorize - pummelling the Institute and instigating a two-way energy exchange. Bassist Youth lighting incense sticks or whatever the fuck it was christ I'm tired who reads this shit anyway was a touching addition. 

Love Like Blood and Requiem, two foremost set staples, are tucked inside the middle of the set for once. Security lies in the understanding that the band could fart them through a kazoo and the respective gorgeous ache and fantastic stomp of these two would still transmit, and still incite no less applause. 



After thirty-eight (thousand?) years in the game, frontman Jaz Coleman is also no less the most hypnotic frontman of his generation. Still keeping any heel-snapping newcomers at bay, looking away is an impossible task as it is searingly clear from his expressions that every word carries megatons of weight, delivered accordingly. 

Guitarist Geordie Walker, meanwhile, is a mystery no easier to figure out even when working a few feet away. Chordal oddness and sheer inventiveness mixes with a guitar sound that is completely and utterly unmistakable, with bludgeoning riffing giving way to effortlessly illustrated textures, housed inside great cathedrals of sound, making his underrated status all the more criminal. 

Geordie Walker's Gibson ES-295: a conduit to chaotic noise

There are precious few acts where each and every member makes their mark through sheer force of personality as well as musical and technical skill. Skinsman 'Big' Paul Ferguson emits kidney-puncturing beats, perfectly undercutting the band's sound and quite possibly vibrationally eroding the venue's infrastructure. Aforementioned Martin 'Youth' Glover's driving bass dances around it wonderfully, fulfilling an overall sound that is, upon reflection, something not to be repeated. 


It is sobering to think of the oft-cited bands who Killing Joke left a (claw) mark on - the likes of Metallica, Tool, and Nine Inch Nails may command bigger audiences and their own degrees of fan loyalty, but know this: there will only ever be one Killing Joke, with an unrivalled intensity and singular identities of sound. Miss them at your absolute peril.

Still laughing: Killing Joke return with the incendiary 'Pylon'

Every few years, with the state of Planet Earth sinking utterly beyond satire and parody in its Nineteen Eighty-Five-on-steroids ruination, a certain collective pause to pass scathing comment upon it. This acidic dissent comes courtesy of messrs Jaz Coleman, Martin 'Youth' Glover, Geordie Walker and Big Paul Ferguson, trading unclassifiable apocalyptic disco-metal as the legendary and influential Killing Joke.

"Living outside of the grid is our goal! Misery lies at the heart of control," blares Coleman, resuming duties as messenger from the atomic wasteland in Autonomous Zone. Killing Joke's ideals are everlastingly precious and increasingly sensible, and are more often than not wielded as a bludgeoning device with which to beat some sense and wordly awareness into the listener.

And bludgeon, they certainly do: Ferguson commands a legion of skin-thwacking undercurrents that piercingly punctuates each nuclear missive, driven by Youth's submarine bass. Guitarist Geordie Walker's unique stringsmanship, an integral part of the Killing Joke sound since its inception, acutely divides his time between blunt-force-trauma riffing and wonderfully bleak soundscapes, matching Coleman's fustrated railings against mankind's descent.

Their knack for an immediately discernible and danceable tune is gratifyingly present and correct, with Euphoria and New Cold War proudly representing the band's fearless forays past the punk label in a time-honoured willingness to explore other avenues and nuke them.

Their primal ferocity is entirely compounded, aided and abetted by the same slickness that so enriched predecessor album MMXII. This production sheen may lend a slight cleanliness to the sound, but it in no way distils the message, like a celebrated film director employing modern touches to realise the artistic vision with greater clarity.

As is to be expected of such a self-aware and consistently thoughtful act like the 'Joke, the persistent question of mortality pervades (see also: Iron Maiden). Big Buzz also expertly treads between joyous anthem and teary emotion-trigger. A sense of celebration is one of their several alluring aspects, and this track harks back to the likes of On All Hallow's Eve, Honour the Fire and even Gratitude, where the doomishness is countered by Killing Joke's great sense of occasion: the self-styled Gathering.

In another parallel to Iron Maiden, they present their first double-disc studio effort. The second 'half' of Pylon, while feeling slightly like a tugboat trailing behind a battleship, still packs in four righteously furious pieces. It oddly ends with a remix of Snakedance, the original being curiously absent from the album. This prevents Pylon from sharing the sense of end-to-end completeness that MMXII had. Yet, Pylon has the key advantage of the expansiveness of double albums, and an abundance of such searingly strong music is not to be complained about.

With this, their fifteenth half-spat-half-sung commentary on a world continuing to circle the drain, Killing Joke have proven, once again, that the last laugh is theirs. Pylon is the mutated flower that grows through irradiated concrete: glimpses of ironic beauty in a diseased, dying landscape.

Review: The Death and Resurrection Show (Killing Joke documentary)

It’s brass monkeys, as they (probably) say, as a February wind tries to shove me off-balance into a passing mobile library. I am snaking through to London’s South Bank, miles from the sacred ground where a band called Killing Joke would have first formed and fought, a million years ago.  I pass pockets of tourists, and fail to find a bin for the banana skin I am carrying.

Entering the BFI building, a wary eye is kept out for Killing Joke’s frontman, Jeremy ‘Jaz’ Coleman, due to participate in a Q&A session after the film. A volcano-throated mystic who has spent nigh-on three decades fronting one of the most influential bands to tour the Earth, Killing Joke have probably made a mark on a band you like and you don’t even know it. Metallica? Check. Tool? Check. Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Prong, Soundgarden? Check.

Oh, and Nirvana’s memorable Come As You Are bassline? Go listen to Killing Joke’s Eighties.

Those who could be here tonight are wandering around the building, easily spotted. I spare a thought for all of those who couldn’t make it, and perhaps the most-missed brother of all: Paul Vincent Raven, Killing Joke’s long-term bass player. In a wondrous example of triumph over tragic, Raven’s untimely death in 2007 was the catalyst for the original line-up to reunite. Faced with their mortality, the force-of-nature alchemical combination was restored.

After a series of reunion concerts, 2010 saw the release of Absolute Dissent. A wide-eyed and abrasive slab of noise, it still touched on moments of beauty, not least The Raven King: the Joke’s musical send-off for their fallen comrade.

Having established their return and reaffirmation, the more musically considered MMXII shot out of the portal in 2012. Still packing enormous sonic punch, the Joke painted with more colours from their musical pallet. Here they kept a watchful eye over the impending collapse of mankind, taking in the magnetic shift of the Earth’s poles, the construction of FEMA internment camps in America, solar flares wrecking Earthly electrical systems, and that old chestnut, the end of the world.

Back in London, it is time to sit and gawp at an admirable attempt to tell the story of this extraordinary outfit: The Death And Resurrection Show. Killing Joke’s circus is in town, as is their ideal of ‘the gathering’, as grown-up punks momentarily take over the bar and seating areas.  There is a great sense of occasion, but on a small, humble scale, where softly-spoken voices of reunited friends are moved to joyous laughter. The time eventually comes for everyone to pile into the screen room, and the usual kerfuffle over seats ensues.

The film itself is a treat, bravely pulling the dimensional veil back and allowing all gathered to spy on fascinating moments in the band’s history, intertwined with illuminating insights from current members, past members, associates and fans – including a pair of nobodies called Dave Grohl and Jimmy Page.

From a burned-down flat in Battersea, to the King’s Chamber in Egypt, to the Island of Iona, through the Basements of Hell in Prague, it’s a rollercoaster ride through the cosmos, laced with fascinating anecdotes and fantastical individuals. There doesn't appear to have been a square of the planet that the band haven’t touched, or touched upon.

 At the centre of it all is Jaz Coleman, the all-seeing eye of the storm. We see the progression of his remarkable life: from angry young school leaver to post-punk keyboardist, student of the theology, cult of personality (to the chagrin of drummer ‘Big’ Paul Ferguson, a figure of quiet dignity and a lingering wisp of fury), scourge of record companies and music journalists (do a search for ‘Jaz Coleman maggots’), eventually becoming something of a modern renaissance figure.

It would be rude not to mention Kevin ‘Geordie’ Walker and Martin ‘Youth’ Glover, a fiercely singular and innovative guitar musician, who provides much of the sonic textural backdrops for Coleman’s acid-spitting roar. Youth meanwhile provides a hippie-tinged foil, bringing a love of dub and dance to the mix and countering the doom-laden heaviness with his own artful spiritualism. The aforementioned Ferguson provides an approach to drumming not before seen in this dimension, described as his rhythms have been “like Garry Glitter on crack”.

The film stays remarkably true to the spirit of Killing Joke, by way of presenting chaos with a driven narrative, a sense of ‘background reins’, as can be detected in the band’s music – just the right amount of wrong, and thus the whole circus never quite collapses.

But thanks to The Death And Resurrection Show, we have further access than before on all the moments (and there are numerous) when the charade almost ground to a halt, from the infamous (and according to Coleman, much-misunderstood) fleeing of the singer to Iceland, to the reputation-buggering Outside the Gate, the magick-tinged battles of ego, and steadfast bassist Paul Raven’s tragic passing.

It is a double-edged sword that the film eventually has to finish, and there is no coverage of the band’s escapades post-Absolute Dissent – understandable, as by the time footage had been tacked-on to the documentary another chapter would have undoubtedly begun – and it is immeasurably tantalising to remember that Killing Joke is alive, well, and still laughing.

A Q&A session takes place afterwards as we collectively gasp for air and attempt to make sense of what has been seen: a story that would have been remarkable as mere fiction, let alone the actual history of a band. Fascinating anecdotes about the film’s troubled genesis are revealed, along with musical recollections from Coleman that tickle the assembled. Jaz is to be found later signing copies of his book, Letters From Cythera: A Ludibrium by Jaz Coleman. He patiently signs everything and poses for everything else. It’s especially surreal to have witnessed The Death And Resurrection Show and see the figure at its centre amicably chatting with those gathered.

After speaking with him on a resonance found in Killing Joke's music found wanting elsewhere, I stumble out into the night, the air laced with the taste of the Thames. I amble through the glow cast by the now-named Coca-Cola London Eye: another symbol of sheer wrong, as a bloated company steals even more space from your vision to flog you sugary liquid excrement. It’s just the sort of thing Killing Joke would froth and foam over, sonically pummelling you whilst also presenting the facts of the argument, such is their gift. Perhaps it’ll feature on the impending new album.

Walking up the steps to my hotel, a sudden slip sends me careering majestically back down. Luckily, it’s too dark for the Nikon-armed tourists to see me and capture my fall for posterity.

On the hotel step sits a banana peel.

The Joke is alive.