While doom and gloom are invariably still the prevailing order of the day here at Chez Flaming Pablum, there was a fleeting moment of untethered rapture quite recently when a big ol' box from Amazon.Co.UK arrived in my mailbox, bearing the brand spanking new batch of Killing Joke remasters. In this day and age when albums like Weezer's first magnum opus are re-released and feted with gushing praise, the re-mastered works of a notoriously disagreeable post-punk band from the 1980s probably doesn't seem like big news. But if you can't figure out why I'm excited about the long-overdue overhaul of Fire Dances, Night Time, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns and -- to a somewhat lesser degree -- the universally maligned Outside The Gate, then you're surely reading this weblog by sheer accident. Killing Joke matters. Weezer does not.
In any case, while asking me to wax rhapsodic about the malevolent splendor of this particular era of Killing Joke's sonic oeuvre is about as difficult as convincing a swine to wallow in its own pungent filth, I would feel somewhat remiss not to address the arguably momentous occasion of these re-releases. For those readers who don't give a rolling rat fuck about the black hearted majesty of Killing Joke, might I suggest fucking right off, as the rest of this post will assuredly bore you incontinent.
Let's dig in, then, shall we?
First up is 1983's Fire Dances. Killing Joke's fourth studio album was allegedly birthed whilst the band was busily imbibing a steady diet of a somewhat notorious crystalline alkaloid. As such, the finished product sounded a bit treble-heavy. While not as divisive an album as certain others in their catalog, consensus among the band's faithful has always been somewhat split on Fire Dances. As far as I'm concerned, however (and, really, this is my stupid weblog, after all), this album's detractors are consummate morons. Killing Joke sounded positively unique at the time of this album's conception. It is assuredly the contributions of guitarist Geordie Walker that truly make Fire Dances what it is, his golden, hollow-bodied Gibson ES-295 achieving a singular, bell-like chime that is oft-imitated yet never duplicated.
As with all these re-releases, there are extensive liner notes giving historical perspective (written by one Tony Raven, no relation to the late Paul Raven -- to whom all of these discs are dedicated) and there are a tantalizing clutch of bonus tracks. In the instance of Fire Dances the bonus tracks include a few Peel Sessions recordings, and original version of "The Gathering" (the album's opening cut) and "Me or You," the band's first foray towards more pop-friendly fare and a song that is still bitterly loathed by some quarters of the Joke faithful, although I've always thought it's great. I should also point out that each of these discs comes lovingly appended with the original artwork and additional images from era-appropriate single releases. Whomever handled the design did a top drawer job.
Next up is quite possibly my single favorite album of all time, Night Time. Released in early 1985 when the band was at the height of its powers, this album struck the perfect balance between their earlier aggressive approach and their newfound melodic accessibility. Elegiac and ominous but still packing the propulsive punch of a nuclear warhead, Night Time supplied both a stentorian stomp to appease the mohican contingent as well as a stately, lyrical quality that earned them a whole new audience. The re-mastering reveals more space and depth in the instrumentation, giving Raven's bass lines and Big Paul Ferguson's drums room to breathe under Geordie's barrage of guitars. I simply never tire of listening to this album.
The bonus tracks that come with Night Time blow a new part in my hair. All the fabled Kid Jensen tracks (from a British live-in-the-studio radio program) are officially released for the first time. Though previously available in widely circulated bootleg form, tracks like "New Culture," "All Play Rebel," the full version of "Blue Feather" and a rousing romp through "Eighties" are all lovingly cleaned up and stripped of Mr. Jensen's inane radio blather that used to mar their respective intros. While not quite crystalline, the sound is a revelation compared to those earlier bootlegged versions. Also included for the first time is the 7" version of "A New Day." Killing Joke had a puzzling habit of releasing random singles in between albums that often never made it onto their full LPs. I'm glad these quibbles are being rectified at last.
The third re-release is probably the most ear-opening of the four. Upon its initial release in 1986, Brighter Than A Thousand Suns alienated huge swathes of the band's ever-boisterous fan base by being their most accessible (by design) album to date, arguably capitalizing on a new demographic of fan won over by the elegiac "Love Like Blood" on Night Time. The end results, in the minds of some, flew directly in the face of the band's original intentions. Jaz actually sings throughout the proceedings, and the jagged edge of Geordie's signature guitar was sand-papered down to a smooth finish. In all honesty, had Brighter Than A Thousand Suns been my introduction to Killing Joke, they may not have become my favorite band. That said, tracks like the storming "Rubicon" and "Chessboards" retained the `Joke's trademark oomphiosity. Twenty-two years later comes this re-release, but there's a crucial difference. This version features producer Chris Kimsey's restored original mixes. The new finished product is a revelation. Where once this record dripped in gloppy production syrup, there is new space and definition to these songs, with much needed distinction to the players. The sound is burlier and beefier.
Walking down Broadway this afternoon, "Rubicon" came flooding into my headphones and I was so galvanized that I punted an imaginary soccer ball when that first burst of drums comes in after Geordie's ominous intro. More than any other track on the album, "Rubicon" sounds like Killing Joke chomping at the bit and straining to be unleashed (although, to be fair, this beefed up mix of the track was already included on the somewhat jumbled For Beginners compilation). While the thought process behind releasing these original mixes is a bit revisionist (are we all to forget the version of the album we've known and loved for the past two decades), it truly does give me a new appreciation for these songs. To the layperson, the versions might not sound as night and day as I'm making them out to sound like here, but the differences will make any acolyte of the band stand up with fists aloft. In terms of bonus tracks, b-sides and extended mixes are added, but nothing that hasn't been widely available before.
If Brighter... alienated certain fans, its troubled follow-up, Outside The Gate caused flat out attrition among the faithful. Reports conflict as to the ambitious albeit flawed concept album's original genesis. Jaz Coleman has suggested that it was to be his solo album until the label demanded otherwise. If that's true, then why were all four members of Killing Joke initially involved? Regardless, Big Paul Ferguson and Coleman had a seemingly irreparable fall-out during the early stages of the album's recording and Ferguson was banished from the studio with his recorded contributions wiped from the tape (you can read more about this episode in my interview with Big Paul from back in 2004). Raven summarily jumped ship as well, leaving only Geordie to act as Jaz's foil. Newly fixated with the notion of recording the album's rhythms as dictated by numerology (really, it's best not to ask), the end results are nothing if not original, but the overall sound owes precious little to Killing Joke. Geordie's parts are barely audible, let alone recognizable. Of-their-era keyboards are everywhere alongside big gated drums and woefully overproduced flourishes. Adding insult to injury, Jaz's lyrics invoke cringe after cringe, especially on the album's single, "America." To suggest that Outside The Gate is not the band's finest hour is an exercise in Herculean understatement. Put simply, it is Killing Joke's own Cut The Crap.
As off-putting as Outside was for me at the time, it still wasn't enough to drive me away. I've pulled it out and listened to it countless times over the years, as it does have the odd intriguing moment. There are bits of the title track and "Tiahuanaco" that I think are quite striking (Jaz's ridiculous "what I did on my vacation" lyrics notwithstanding), and the main riff of "Stay One Jump Ahead" is brilliant, although the utterly ham-fisted attempt at "rapping" --- yes, rapping -- that appeared on the extended version is without question Killing Joke's most appalling moment on record. Said mix is understandably absent from this remaster.
If anything, the departure-for-nowhere that was Outside The Gate at least paved the way for the band's cathartic about-face that would take the form of Extremities, Dirt And Various Repressed Emotions in 1990. That album was also recently re-mastered and re-released, but that's a post for someone else to write.
As I mentioned in my eulogy-of-sorts for the late Paul Raven, this set of re-releases are a conflicting present. While I thrill to the sonic nuances that the remastering has afforded them, I can't help thinking that this may be the end of the line for Killing Joke. With Raven no longer acting as instigator, I will be very curious to see if the remaining members can pull together and get back on course. Their fractious track record does not suggest as such, but stranger things have happened.
In the interim, these albums should be celebrated and played at excruciating volumes.
I stepped onto the elevator earlier this week on my way to make that crucial washer-dryer changeover down in the laundry room and one of my neighbors down the hall stepped on with me. Because I'm such a hopeless cliché and a prime midlife crisis candidate, I was sporting a classic, black Motörhead t-shirt. I'd like to point out at this stage in the narrative that I've been a fan of the band since my sophomore year of high school when I purchased No Sleep `til Hammersmith strictly on the strength of its sleeve. In any case, my neighbor turned to me and said, "I have that t-shirt." I furrowed my brow and dusted off that age-old observation that if Motörhead had sold as many albums as they'd sold t-shirts, they'd be bigger than U2 today.
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