Killing Joke
MMXII

December 2012
Released: 2012, Spinefarm US
Rating: 4.5/5
Reviewer: Peter Atkinson

In spite of frontman Jaz Coleman's eccentricities, or, perhaps, because of them, long-running English heavyweights Killing Joke remain as biting, relevant and apocalyptic as ever. MMXII (2012 in Roman numerals) pulsates with anti-government/corporate rage and end of the world prophesizing, among other things, that make it the perfect soundtrack to the U.S. presidential election cycle or — if you believe the Mayans — our imminent demise.



Especially prescient, given the recent Frankenstorm Sandy we just endured on the East Coast, are the climate-change harangue “Pole Shift” that opens the album and the harrowing “FEMA Camp,” which details the unfortunate consequence of post-Katrina relief efforts where displaced families got stuffed into mobile home compounds Coleman likens to concentration camps. Not a comforting thought for those who lost everything in Sandy.



“Rapture” and “Colony Collapse” echo similarly forboding themes and the self-explanatory “Corporate Elect” doesn’t offer much “hope” for “change” — to borrow common election campaign buzzwords. And with his eerily reasoned delivery, Coleman sounds anything but a crank or conspiracy theorist.



His professorial recitations are more charismatic and learned than heavy-handed here, and the band’s engaging, electronic-tinged hard rock adds just the right taste of sugar to help the medicine go down. The bouncy bottom end that drives much of the album has an almost disco-like feel, and Geordie Walker’s dense riffing is punctuated by one head-bobbing hook after another. Indeed, doomsday never sounded so good.