The arrival of a new Killing Joke record is always cause for celebration – if not always for its quality, then simply for the heartening triumph of order against the chaos that always seems to surround this most mercurial of bands. Hosannas From The Basement of Hell comes after their triumphant (and frankly unexpected) return with their eponymous ’03 album, a record which recaptured all the venom and drive of their early years.
Killing Joke revivals, however, have traditionally been short lived affairs - 1990’s Extremities album turned out to be a one-off, the equally excellent Pandemonium album brought a disappointing follow up in Democracy and that line-up promptly disintegrated again without touring.
Which pattern of history will this record follow? At first glance all appears promising – the key trio of frontman Jaz Coleman, guitarist Geordie and bassist Raven are all back on board, at last they have a proper drummer onboard as a band member (former Kill II This man Ben Calvert replacing sessioner Dave Grohl) and the single (and title track) was a promisingly raucous affair.
On first listen though it’s disappointing – soundwise, it’s a reaction to the crisp, Pro-Tooled production on KJ’03, and this time it’s a live, one-take affair, providing a muddy soundscape across which numerous, medium-paced monomaniacally riffed epics unfold in a manner which at first seems turgid but then reveals hypnotic qualities on repeated listens.
|
The undoubted high point is Invocation, already marked down as Killing Joke’s Kashmir, a string and hand-percussion-accompanied 8 minute track which sounds like an ancient pharaoh’s army on the march; elsewhere Implosion speeds the pulse with its frantic near thrash and Gratitude growls along with the relentless power of a belligerent Grizzly. Coleman is in full, raw-throated druid mode, Geordie’s riffs possess the brute power of a Neanderthal pummelling a rock against a cave wall. Occasionally the simplicity smacks of the unimaginative - Lightbringer is a shameless appropriation of their own Asteroid, for example – but overall the aura is of four already slightly unhinged men secreting themselves into a claustrophobic rehearsal basement and working up a metal-tinged trance-state (at just over four minutes, opener This Tribal Antidote is the only track to clock in at under the five minute mark).
Where they go remains as unpredictable as ever, with Raven apparently out of the band. Wherever they go, they remain the apocalypse’s most potent soundtrackers.
|
