Killing Joke

I liked this way more than I thought I would. It's a weird mash of genres: proto-industrial, post-punk, metal... But the mix works. It was also nice to have some actual rock and roll for once. It falls shy of full marks only because a few of the tracks are a bit (or more than a bit) monotonous/obnoxious.

laughably bad at points, one decent song, not sure why it's on the list

I had never heard of these guys, but I was glad to have listened to this. Ahead of their time sound-wise, hard to believe this was 1980. A good mixture of punk and more melodic. Elements of the Cure or NIN in there.

Not to be confused with 2003 album "The Killing Joke," also by The Killing Joke. (Although Killing Joke fan Dave Grohl played drums on that album, interestingly enough.) Also not to be confused with the 1988 graphic novel "Batman: the Killing Joke," by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland, widely regarded as one of the best Joker stories ever told. Also not to be confused with American band The Killing Joke, which seems to have released three singles in 2021. Rather, this The Killing Joke are led by frontman Professor Severus Snape. Ok, not really. Jaz Coleman looked nothing like Snape when this album came out. But he really bears a striking resemblance now. If he actually believed himself to be a wizard, that wouldn't even be so surprising. Consider this from the Seattle Weekly: "The long-standing “mystic,” who lives on a small New Zealand island these days (perhaps to avoid having to wear a tinfoil hat every day), believes, among other things, that China has built microwave towers to control the population with microchips, which are secretly implanted via vaccines, and this will eventually happen elsewhere around the world; that people are being mind-controlled by chemtrails in the sky and fluoride in the water; that nutrients are being purposefully removed from foods to kill us and keep the world population down; that swine flu is a bioweapon; and that due to changes in the earth’s magnetic field, time is actually speeding up (actually, this one’s sort of believable—is it already the holidays again?!)." But as for the actual music? The opener "Requiem" was kind of cool, but "Wardance" almost lost me. By the time it got to "The Wait," I was back on board, and I really enjoyed "Complications."

The opener, "Requiem" was an attention grabber. With the exception of a few noisy interludes in the middle this was an excellent album. It felt about 10 years ahead of its time as its influence on industrial metal and alternative rock are immediately clear. Will definitely revisit this one.

oooooh Killing Joke!! TBH The only song I know from them is Millenium. Which is a bad ass song!! super diggin this album, it's like early punk and also a little bit of like joy division tones maybe? I love this. 5 stars

Loved it. Some really great rifts and just beats. Don't know how this escaped me. this what this list is for.

Brutal but surprisingly groovy. Progenitor of so much I love.

Very techno and seemingly punk. Rough, gritty, grinding and monotonous at times.

not horrible, but very repetitive. not a lot that sticks out as really good or memorable. lyrics can be interesting but still repetitive. had no desire to listen to the re-issue bonus tracks

The repetitive character of the guitar riffs, the keystrokes and the rousing drumwork have an hypnotic effect on the music, and musically and lyrically it provides a somewhat nihilistic and grey view of the world. It is the link between the punk and the post-punk. Killing Joke succeeds in creating a the atmosphere and sound that is characteristic of the British urban environments in the early 1980s. The album cover also contributes to that feeling. Absolute masterpiece

Post-punk debut that separated the contenders from the pretenders.

Nice. Best tracks are Bloodsport and Change 3/5

Bloodsport and S.O.36 were very repetitive melodically. Liked some of the bass lines. Vocals reminded me The Clash a little bit.

annoying

These guys should have either added more to each song that wasn’t repetitive or trimmed the fat. Too much of the same thing in each song. Repeated choruses way too many times. Put another verse in or trim the length

Je n'ai pas tellement envie de rédiger de critique de cet album de punk alors je vous propose de lire celle que j'ai écrite pour l'album Pink Flag (et non le groupe Pink Flag comme j'ai pu le penser) des Wire qui s'applique grosso merdo à celui-ci.

i'm thinking of a band named Killing Joke and their self-titled album featuring a bunch of children crawling over ruins on the cover. i am picturing a dour, humorless release with a vocalist who sounds like Mark E. Smith from the fall. there is an annoying sound collage on it and despite being only 30 minutes or so, it feels ten minutes too long. it is entirely popular with John Peel fans who had the worst day of their lives when Steve Albini died. i am listening Killing Joke's self titled album. it is the most fun i have ever had listening to a dismal record about how everything's fucked and man is evil. "Requiem" rips. "The Wait" rips. "Complications" and "Bloodsport" rip -- everything rips. i love it. i am now probably gonna check out the rest of their music because this was unbelievably good. don't judge a book by it's cover. listen to an album with an increasingly worrying genre tag; you might just be surprised.

So this album typifies the great divide in the late 70s/early 80s music world. Hipsters and kids with access to college radio, plus the extremely disaffected (a slightly younger version of Winona Ryder from "Heathers,' say), were listening to this album. I, on the other hand, like the bulk of kids in my lily-white suburb, was imbibing disco and yacht rock. It wasn't until Billy Idol broke through on the pop charts that I was even aware that punk/industrial rock really existed. Too bad for me. This album is great--inventive, interesting, varied. Now I get why people like punk. I will certainly listen to it again. It's just a shame that, instead of my limited brain cells being devoted to this kind of music, they've been squandered on more Air Supply lyrics than you can shake a stick at.

The best Killing Joke album with best opening song ever. Superclassic.

This is great. Way ahead musically and conceptually against other similar bands, and for raw aggression, mood, anger, despair, intensity, and darkness no one comes close from this era, except for Joy Division and maybe Bauhaus. The use of synths and echo effects really elevates this in my eyes. It’s almost a No Wave record, and it really grooves for a post-punk/industrial/metal album.

Excellent album. The members of this band had only gotten together in June of 1979 and by 1980 this album would revolutionize the notion of punk and industrial music. On this album you get the proto tracks of industrial and electronic rock that would illuminate the path for groups I love like Skinny Puppy, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, and many others... My favorite tracks are "Requiem", "Wardance", "The Wait", and "The Primitive".

Finally, a band I've never heard of before.. let's go! Half way through the album. This is EXACTLY the type of album that makes this project worth it. Top notch discovery incoming! After two full listens. This is easily the best discovery I have made so far on the generator. In other people's reviews, everyone has a different opinion on who this band sounds like, or who they've clearly influenced. Obviously, the extent of their influence stretches pretty wide. But beyond that, this is a very solid, exciting assortment of songs. The album is well balanced, well paced, there are no weak tracks, there are no weak links within the band, just great music all around. 5/5 defiant fists in the air ✊✊✊✊✊

So glad this is on the list. I enjoyed it so much I listened to it twice along with two other albums. I was already a fan of their most popular songs, Eighties & Love Like Blood, but this album was rougher with a mix of rock, punk & industrial. At times, they reminded me of Ministry. I'll be listening to Killing Joke regularly (which is something I've been meaning to do anyway). They've got a new lifelong fan.

Heavy, industrial, feel like there are also some dub influences here. Surprised I'd never heard of this before; feel like a band like Big Black or Failure would have worn copies of this record. Favorite tracks: "Wardance", "The Wait", "S.O.36"

Great album with no skips. Love the industrial sound

A+ album cover and great band name. Post Punk is one of the greatest rock subgenres because you get the anarchist spirit but you can dance to it. They sound a little like Gang Of Four playing Cabaret Voltaire covers. Dare I say it but this drummer gets wobbly sometimes, though I guess that's part of the charm.

I know I've heard of the band before, but nothing on this album is familiar to me, and I'm not sure I've ever heard *anything* by them before--it's nice to get another unknown from the collection. And while it's not an earth-shattering album by any stretch, I enjoyed it more than I expected to enjoy what Wikipedia labelled as a "post-punk" band (a term that doesn't really conjure up much of anything in my mind, and seems to span a *lot* of territory). I was occasionally reminded of Ministry's take on industrial sound ("Wardance" in particular), and also The Clash's beat-driven sound, but they clearly had their own sound. My favorites were probably the opening track "Requiem" (in part because I wasn't expecting such heavy synths from the get-go), "Bloodsport", and "Primitive" (with a head-banging nod to the B-sides "Change" and "Pssyche" that apparently only appeared on the "Requiem" and "Wardance" singles (respectively)). This feels so much like the soundtrack to some post-apocalyptic/dystopian movie from that period, like "Escape from New York", "Running Man" or "Mad Max"/"Road Warrior" or the like, all of which would have benefited tremendously from the grind of Killing Joke. I can also see why Dave Grohl calls this one of his favorite albums, even if it's probably not going to live up there as one of mine. It's tough to know how to rate this, as it's much more interesting than three stars, but aside from its out-of-left-field-entertainment-value, I'm not sure it's really four star material. But why not reward experiments that actually (and largely) succeed?

Knew “The Wait” from my days as a Metallica obsessed teenager, but was largely unfamiliar with Killing Joke aside from that. An enjoyable and influential electronic/punk hybrid.

Groovy, bleak, industrial punk.

Its different and you'll either like it or not. Funk/Industrial/Prog Rock is an interesting combo. Band is obviously talented, discovered their own sound and inspired a lot of big name bands today

Maybe I am just not in the mood for this kind of genre, maybe I am not into the music. Cant say that I enjoyed listening to the album. Will I listen to this album again? I dont think so. unless, if there's something that direct me this way again, some discoveries, some suggestions, I might. 2.1/3

The sounded like they were on the edge of a sound that was going to be something special but never got there. This isn't great, didn't finish.

Couldn't get into it or understand why it is so seminal

2 Thought it started off decent but got weaker as it went on.

First impression: these guys sound like the Anti-Nowhere League. Second impression: there's some good guitar and bass playing in here. Third impression: it all kinda runs together, and the vocals are often hard to understand. This feels like an album of unmet potential. 2.5 stars rounded down to 2.

They're only on this list because Nirvana and Metallica liked them.

Just boring? A really forgettable album. 4/10.

Music that sounds way too simple to these ears. Maybe I could have grown to appreciate it if I grew up with it, but that is not the case (and, I’d argue, for very audible reasons).

Hard to pin this sound down. Industrial, post-punk, Brit-rock. Is an odd mixture. Sometimes catchy (like "Primitive"), sometimes redundant and goes no-where ("Tomorrow's World"), sometimes hard driving ("The Wait"). Has it's own sound which appears a bit ahead of their time. To me, is like an unpolished version of Tool. In the end, not really much to me. D+

British critic bait. If only life in London wasn’t so shite. 4/10

There are a lot of interesting, very thematic with post-punk musical ideas here that blend right into the vibe of the music. That being said, I think other bands like Magazine and New Order did it better. I don't find this particularly exciting or new, especially when Magazine's Self-Titled came out the year before. These are just kind of punk songs that lack the grip, bite, and catchiness of predecessors & contemporaries such as The Clash, Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys, and Ramones.

Didn't quite get to the end, because I just got tired.

Pretty tough to imagine that this band was a big influence on such great hard rock groups. Their songs felt boring and repetitive. A lot of them were long and would drown on. Their style wasn’t bad but it’s been done better by other bands of the same era. This was a pretty passable album. 3.4/10

I am disgusted with myself that I'd never sat and listened to this before. I'd hears covers of Requiem and The Wait, but my god, this is glorious. The Cure if they weren't afraid of distortion. Thrash metal crossed with drum machines crossed with dub atmospherics. Brutal and beautiful and awesome all at the same time. Love it.

A classic.

Didn't expect it to be so groovy. Banger album.

Superb

Killing Joke killed it with this killer album.

6 stars!

Debated on whether or not I would loop this but then I started played their other Deluxe albums with the same name so this is an obvious hell yeah 5 star for me

Great band great album

A debut you say? Well I'm keen to learn more. I quite enjoyed this album. Requiem kind of sets the scene but it's the instrumentals that grab me like Bloodsport, what a great track.

Loved this! Feels like a missing link between post-punk and industrial, alright. I think I've previously dipped into some of their much later albums, but wasn't too taken by them, but this is exactly my jam. Went for a third playthrough as soon as the second ended, and will definitely revisit more, maybe check our more of their earlier stuff, too. Fave tracks - "Requiem", "Wardance" and "Tomorrow's World" are a super strong opening salvo!

Dystopic alternative rock album, a classic for me. Very dark aggressive mood, energetic songs.

im sickkkkk...and so is this ALBUm! gottem.. just the coolest music ever and a kinda insane achievement for 1980... its dark and metallic and icy and political but idk how Grimey it actually is? maybe its just the dancey grooves and synths but theres a layer of abstraction and even Theatre to the whole thing...doomy and gloomy and gothic in a very aestheticized way. and ofc not sounding one bit generic along the way! killer record, super entertaining, i hate the flu cough cough achoooo

I adore this record. Even the dub remix of requiem is incredible.

In other news 4/5 for Killing Joke... if this album had 'eighties' on it 5/5

Post punk rarely has this much sonic variation and color in its character.

This was good - it's a bit strange and sort of repetitive at times, but somehow it kinda works. Kinda like videogame music, it just really seems to suit for just walking/running or working. I really liked it

This album is great. It sounds fresh and modern. Lots of angular guitars and attitude.

Awesome!!

Brilliant album! Diverse musicianship - sludgy in places, pop in others. Really big fan and will definitely be returning to Killing Joke.

Great start to finish. I can’t believe this came out in 1980.

Yes. Superb find. Great energy, great riffs, great everything. Can't believe I've never heard of these guys before, outside of Metallica's The Wait cover which was crap in hindsight. Can see where people took a lot of inspiration from, even hearing LCD's Losing my Edge ripping off the final track was a welcome shock. Definitely putting this album into my rotation. Tracks 2&4 the only weak spots, but I'm feeling generous today. 4.5*

5/5. Love me some industrial heaviness. Great grainy and abrasive production along with faded and drowned out vocals while still having catchy lyrics and great riffs and guitar work. Every song still had a sense of structure and accessibility that expertly rode that line of punk and pop. It kind of had a heavy punk-funk vibe, just danceable music with very aggressive lyrics. Yes, may need to be in a mood but this genre just keeps giving for me and I'm not complaining. Best Song: Requiem, Bloodsport, Change

A solid debut from an incredibly influential yet criminally underrated band.

Post-punk has never been a friend of mine. Check my profile—no matter when, you're probably bound to see that it's my worst rated genre. Any time the randomizer gives us an album that's classified as one, unless I already know it, I tend to groan. You can probably blame METAL BOX for that. Even though I have given good reviews to albums labeled as "post-punk," I still come back to METAL BOX as **the** sound for me of the genre. Which is to say: artsy nonsense. Throwing together every dull, irritating anti-music idea you have and acting like we're supposed to be impressed because it's "anti-commercial." It was the first album I ever gave a 2, and since then, I've never felt like being too kind to the genre. Shit like DUB HOUSING didn't help. So, what about Killing Joke, then? How do they stack up against METAL BOX? Do they break the mold? I'm happy to say that, yes, they do. This whole albums fairs a **lot** better than METAL BOX and I dig these songs a lot—hell, I'll even say they "bang." "Rip?" Whatever word the kids these days use (I'm in my late 20's). They groove in just the right way for me, I like the guitar riffs and rhythms, I **love** whenever the keys come in... And I can totally see the complaint that some of these songs maybe run a little long, but it didn't bother me. Heck, I kinda liked getting a little lost in them. They rock so hard, I don't even care. This is just really good, heavy punk shit. No wonder bands like Metallica took inspiration from them. And to narrow in my invocation of Metallica... Yeah, it's not just because they covered "The Wait". Moreso, they're the umbrella I feel like putting it under over post-punk: that is, heavy music adjacent to metal and grunge. And heck, that sort of logic follows through to the albums I mentioned I'd given 4's. They were by DEVO, Talking Heads and Television, and I'd consider them all more New Wave or just straight rock than post-punk. So, perhaps that's really why I have a problem with the genre, truly: I keep finding reasons to separate out the stuff I like, leaving me to think of it as just pretentious crap. Hell, even this album, chances are good I'd refer to it as "industrial rock" to people before "post-punk." And that's not fair to post-punk, I realize—assuming it even is anything beyond an arbitrary label, but let's not get into that. Instead, I'll say this much: KILLING JOKE is the best post-punk album I've heard yet. It appeals so directly to my love of heavy music, and I think it bangs hard. If you like bands like Metallica or Nirvana, it's worth giving these guys a shot. And I can only hope that moving forward, albums like this can become the rule for my image of post-punk rather than the exception.

Absolutely adored every single synth, bass, and drum opener on this album. Most of the tracks went on to deliver the proto-goth goods, too! Yes - it is criminal that I have not listened to this. I knew of Killing Joke (enough to not call them The Killing Joke), but I only knew the song Eighties, and that largely through Nirvana. It seems that there were a lot of others listening to this too - Metallica, NIN, Pet Shop Boys, Daft Punk….The album itself sure as hell doesn’t sound like 1980; it was classified as metal-disco and I don’t hate that description, but I really think this was something unique at the time. It holds up.

My usual way of describing the style of a piece of music, by comparing it to other bands and genres, wouldn't really do justice here, because these guys seem to be pretty fundamental. The style is already the essence of what I would be referring to with my comparisons. And yes, I did read the blurb about the band on my streaming app before forming my own opinion, but I agree with what it said. Anyway, the band that wrote "Eighties" being a cornerstone of one of the aspects of eighties music is pretty neat.

This is clearly among my favorite totally new discoveries from this book and why I enjoy this exercise so much. As far as rapidly self-produced debut albums go, you can't get much better than this. It reminds me of Marquee Moon in that the entire production feels so organic--it's very easy to just picture these guys getting in a room and jamming this album out. Their influence on 90s sound is blindingly obvious and explains why I enjoy it so much. Something that influences metal and alternative at the same time? It's a wrap for me. Favorite track: Requiem

meh

Surprisingly good.

this is why i joined this list. badass.

15% of the way through the list and I have gotten a few punk albums which I didn't much care for. This one... I actually liked a lot! (I guess it's technically post-punk, but I don't know what the distinction is) Favorite track: either "Complications" or the single version of "Requiem." There's a catharsis to a lot of these tracks.

Very strong especially toward the second half after a couple of listens. Yet another Punk building blocks situation that I love this list for exposing me to. I think Refused would have listened to a lot of this.

I loved this. What a find. They sound well ahead of their time and fit into that heavy industrial rock vive that I love.

This was way better than I thought! A fun mix of genres and rocks hard enough to get me through the workday

Great piece of music, very engaging at times challenging but also head nodding. 4.5

Opening track is great! I can’t believe I’ve never listened to this album before. I knew of the wait because of Metallica. I like the original better. This is a great record. I wish I had heard this sooner. I really like this record.

Crisp post punk, love the bass

I've listened to this a bit over the years. Metallica brought me to The Wait, stayed for the rest of the bangers. A classic.

Tight set of songs. No weak tracks. First 5 given Favorite tracks: Requiem, Complications, Change

So that’s what post punk is!

A really solid album, way ahead of its time. Some songs sound a little dated, but the overall production is still great. I don't have many complaints about this one. 4.5

Never heard of it, liked it a lot.

Loved the instrumentals, didn’t really care for the vocals. Usually not my genre, I was surprised!

If I could play guitar well and be in a band this is what I'd play.

Love this album, favourite track Wardance,

It might just be because I listened to this at work while drinking a bang energy, but I really really liked this album. At first, I thought it was going to be a 2 at most but each song grew on me more and more until I was listening to all the bonus tracks and restarting the album from the beginning. I think this album shows that I would really like all the other punk/post punk albums I've gotten if the production had anything interesting going on at all aside from shitty guitars because this had the usual shitty vocals but each track had interesting stuff going on production-wise. Requiem almost has a rave electronica type beat, complications has fun bass guitar work, tomorrow's world has a cool keyboard chord, and the rest is what you imagine is playing when you walk into a seedy biker bar where there's a perpetual fight happening over a disgusting pool table.

This is a great album. Gritty vocals and some great performances. "Asteroid" was a particular favorite of mine.

Excellent album that I’d not heard before. Got me listening to more of their work. Don’t know how I missed them.

I put this music on today and my cat work up from her nap to paw at the screen until I turned it off. I don’t think she’s a fan. On the other hand, I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed listening to this. This ain’t the first time an album has surprised me on this project. I started off a 4 but I’m listening to it for the third time and I really am enjoying it. Yet another unexpected 5.

Gran origen al punk rock argentino

slow down the punk guitars, tribal drums, add some reggae bass and a general sense of doom. One of the founding texts of goth. The first Killing Joke album is absolutely essential and in Requiem, Wardance and Change (the latter on the expanded reissue) a phenomenal piece. They'd sell way more records in the mid-eighties, but this and its successor are the Killing Jokes.

An epic album ahead of its time

great industry postpunk

massive, unique, as fresh as the day it was born

Great to hear this again. The mix of punk, post-punk, dub and disco sounded pretty futuristic at the time. Although not my favourite of theirs (Revelations is a much more consistent album), this did set the blueprint for what followed, and for LOADS of other bands. So many great tunes here: Wardance, Change, Requiem. Top drawer stuff,

4.5 post punk at its finest, can get a tiny bit repetitive in the middle but it's just so up my street that i didn't even mind. also was convinced that had to be robert smith singing at certain points. fave songs: requiem, so36, bloodsport, primitive, change