Killing Joke-Pylon (2015)

Killing Joke-Pylon (2015)

“The Cold War isn't thawing; it is burning with a deadly heat. Communism isn't sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, and fighting.”

Richard M. Nixon

By: Ghost Writer

Just a few seconds into Autonomous Zone, the first song of Killing Joke's new record named Pylon and you know what this is all about, is the same mad energy running thru bands such as Soundgarden, Nine Inch Nails, Voivod and Fear Factory, just to name a few, and that's because this British post punk band is simply one of the greatest thing to happen to music in the last decades, a band almost impossible to categorize and who embodies the best things in post punk: Energy, openness and risk, a powerful conjugation of dangerous guitar riffs, brutal bass, unstoppable drumming and freezing keyboards.

But is on Dawn of the Hive were the band really hits it's intensity climax featuring hyper abrasive guitars and the sort of epic sky high vocals the band is known for, its seems that after titles like Autonomous Zone and New Cold War, Killing Joke have found inspiration on the geopolitical even in eastern Europe, reaching interesting places on this last song, embracing it's post punk roots, razor edge guitars and almost danceable beats, something KJ obvious gave as a legacy to acts like the great Prong.

Euphoria shows a more streamlined approach by the band, their heaviness is put a little aside without hurting themselves at all, concentrating in a more punkish direct attack and a more conscious sense of melody, but the experimentation and the seeds of the sound of bands like Godflesh come to the front in songs like New Jerusalem that simply evidences where Justin K. Broadrick found inspiration for his legendary bands Head of David, Godflesh and Jesu.

The band laid back a little on War on Freedom and Big Buzz, which sound a little more contemplative and less intense, with Big Buzz featuring a hard hitting drum arrangement, and then getting again on heavier territories on Delete which features really tight guitars and vocals that would make Burton C. Bell jealous.

Pylon is another piece of music brutality by a band that refuses to be known for it's past, although glorious, Killing Joke shows record after record that they are more relevant and more contemporary than most of today's band, developing and amazing capacity to even overcome bands they have influenced in the first place with amazing themes like the gargantuan I Am the Virus and the high flying Into the Unknown, a wonderful and at the same time scary song that simply reflects the place we are at the moment with armed conflicts to explode, fundamentalism and populism taking over while capitalism rears its uglier head...