Disco de Killing Joke: “Pandemonium [Bonus Tracks]”

I can honestly say that no album comes close to Pandemonium for pure sonic diversity and thus remains my favourite twelve years after it's release. If you have the original CD release don't bother with this reissue as the couple of bonus tracks are not so great and probably spoil the "balance" of the original track-listing. In a world where people listen to acts simply because they are fashionable Killing Joke remain an individual listening choice...

I typically don't pay much attention to remastered releases; Killing Joke's in general and this one in particular have improved on the sound of the original releases. On this one there's more breathing space between the instruments, which help's Geordie's guitar especially. The "almost" relates to the title track, which is presented in a radically different version from the original, 1994 release. On the original Geordie's guitar rages up and down and back and forth for the length of the track - his playing on the last three minutes or so is maybe the best he's ever done. Here he's reduced to chords and few scales and sound effects.

I'm surprised that this one has only attracted three reviews so far. Released in '94, it was their tenth studio album and by this time Youth was back on bass, accompanying full-time members Jaz and Geordie, but the drums were being manned by a fairly eclectic collection of stand-ins (and it shows, to an extent).

The album is a real cracker, pretty much all the way through, but with reservations that I'll come to anon. I have to admit that on the first few passes I tended to overlook the later tracks (Whiteout and Mathematics in particular) in favour of the first four, which grab you by the wotsits and don't let go, but almost the whole album is shot through with a barely contained power that could only be The Joke, but I'm getting ahead of my self...

The opening (title) track gives you a hint of what you're letting yourself in for. What with Geordie's gutsy, growly, fuzzy axing, Youth's thumping (if rather muted) bassline and Jaz's mystic doomsayer chant it's clear that the album is going to be something special. The theme is maintained with Communion, complete with its simple, repetitive drumslap and Hossam Ramzy going ape on the tom-toms. These two tracks are wonderful, powerful creations and have been put to pretty good use as crowd-pleasers in KJ's live sets. They are both well complimented by their first half-companions Millennium (another trademark invocation of the end-times) and the truly demonic Exorcism. This last one is so savage, so raw, and it harks back to early Joke but with an added dimension: it has to be the stand-out track.

Black Moon and Labyrinth both attempt to maintain this savagery but something about these two fails to move me like the others and they mark a brief hiatus in the album. Jana, which follows, is strangely out of place amongst all this grunge; a melodic, almost gentle love song? from the Joke? You're kidding me, right? Don't get me wrong: standing alone, Jana is a perfectly acceptable song (lovely, even!), but it really doesn't fit in.

Next we come to what probably /is/ my favourite track - Whiteout - which takes the all the rawness and power of Exorcism, doubles the speed, turns it up to 11, and bounces you off the walls. I was privileged to experience this one live at the London Forum back in '08 and it truly is a track to bring out the animal in you. Things drop back down a notch or two for the closing track - Mathematics of Chaos - but not by much and this track closes the album proper on a real high note; strange, fractal and, above all, fast moving.

There are a couple of extras (remixes) which follow, but I won't dwell on these.

Overall, this may not be their best album - the flow is spoiled by some below-par or misplaced tracks in the middle section - but it certainly includes a goodly proportion of the group's best work (at the end as well as the beginning). Dirty, rough, fuzzy and hyped-up, it is classic, stonking Joke and it beats (in my opinion) their most recent studio work by a mile.

"She said 'Unlearn. You must forget the values that you hold. Life is not longevity and beauty is the only goal.'"