1981 ''what's THIS for...!'' LP
If the first album reflected on dystopian visions, this unleashes a nightmare descent into the psyche of those living an unsustainable lie. Many consider this album to be Killing Joke's best. It is without a doubt at once their most experimental and seminal, nightmarish and menacing. The list of so-called industrial and metal bands who have recorded homages to this album over the years is nigh on endless. It is also perhaps the most democratic Killing Joke album. Every element seems mixed with equal venom and Youth shares more of the vocals than previously, notably on the gruelling "Madness." When I first heard this at the age of fifteen it was something that I couldn't just listen to for fun like most punk rock albums, or even other Killing Joke albums. Aside from the proto-techno rock of the single "Follow the Leaders" and its anthemic flipside "Tension," the overwhelming oppression of most of these tracks made for immensely difficult listening. These days they just breeze by. Maybe I gained resistance to unspeakable nightmares as I got older!
"The Fall of Because" hammers out a dark scene of alienation amongst myriad crowds. "Tension" is comparably upbeat, with football terrace chorus building a wall to graffiti with the words to beat frustration: "Let nothing be fantasy!" "Unspeakable" is a labyrinthine nightmare chase through intellectual tunnels that lead nowhere worth commenting on. Eerie drones haunt tribal machine precise drums that topple over themselves to turn clocks backwards. The chorus is a blackly hilarious sarcastic put down, "I wonder who chose the colour scheme, its very nice - Unspeakable!" "Butcher" is the album's philosophical lodestone, articulating explicitly what was implicit in "Wardance." "Out of the virus immunity comes." The rape of mother Earth is lamented by a suitably dehumanised robot voiced Coleman over sheets of metallic looping synth discord offset by a mournful guitar refrain. "Follow the Leaders" ridicules the pursuit of pop music dreams, puking up impressions of bad trip rock festivals as Nuremberg rallies. "Madness" and "Who Told You How?" hurl elements of Eastern music into the creative furnace, and "Exit" is a rabid mania unleashed in the dingey alleys of abandoned streets. The eight track symmetry of this album is so perfect that the three extra tracks, whilst welcome, are unbalancing. A previously unreleased dub mix of "Madness" ups the insanity a little. The "Empire Song" flipside "Brilliant" appears on CD for the first time, and fits in stylisticallly better here than it would have on Revelations, with beasts growling in dystopian dub. The booklet adds some photos of the band from 1981, which reflect some of the mania in their gigs, but unlike the unremastered CD previously there are no lyrics reprinted.
by Billy Hell
December 2005
