KILLING JOKE — Pandemonium (review)

Album · 1994 · Industrial Metal

5/5 · 2015-03-02
Unitron

Killing Joke-Pandemonium

'Pandemonium' is the ninth studio album by Industrial metal/rock band Killing Joke. While Killing Joke always liked to dabble a bit in heavy metal, they never really made a heavy metal album until their eighth studio album 'Extremities, Dirt, and Various Repressed Emotions'. 'Pandemonium' takes it a step further creating a dark, pounding, and aggressive industrial metal album that really proves that they have their important spot in industrial metal history.

The album begins with the driving opening guitar work of the title track. Jaz Coleman's vocals are really varied, switching from clean goth rock vocals to guttural punk vocals that remind me a lot of Lemmy of Motörhead. A great start to a great album. The next song, 'Exorcism', brings you into crunching guitars and the moving beat of the electronics. Coleman's sickened coughs and screams fit well with the repetitious pounding guitars and electronics. Speaking of repetition, this is one of those songs that just pounds itself into your skull. The third song, 'Millennium', is a true classic of industrial metal. The crunching guitar compliments Coleman's guttural vocals, and the transitions into the melodic passages are performed perfectly. The industrial death metal band Fear Factory covered this song, but it doesn't match the quality of original in my opinion. 'Whiteout' reminds me of Acid House of the 90's combined with Ministry, with it's aggressive industrial-thrash combined with chaotic electronics. Like 'Exorcism', this song is another one that just keeps on repeating making you get lost in the pure raging energy.

While this album has perfect headbanging material, it's not without it's less aggressive moments. One of my favorites from the album is the meandering 'Pleasures of the Flesh'. Coleman's guttural vocals are still here, but there aren't any crunching guitars here. Instead, this song is a very atmospheric industrial track with very flowing guitar work. This album also has great use of middle-eastern instrumentation in the songs 'Communion' and 'Labyrinth'. 'Labyrinth' has a great combination of the menacing use of Phrygian scale and distorted guitar.

The lyrics are very thought-provoking on this release, 'Labyrinth' having some of my favorites. The lyrics are on the topics of society, politics, and religion. Some of my favorite lines from this track are 'All the role models, lost souls, false goods that I am shown.' and 'Mystery school of fools, great seats of learning.'

Overall, this is certainly an excellent pick for any industrial metal collection. A great start for anyone looking to get into Killing Joke or the genre. Recommended to fans of both the atmospheric and aggressive side of industrial metal.

more than 2 years ago
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Unitron wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Yeah, probably this and 'Hoesannas' are their heaviest. Love the groove of the title track also.

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

It´s probably their most metal-related release (the title track features a really nice groovy metal riff). Extremeties is also a rather extreme album, but it´s more hardcore influenced. Some of their later releases also feature quite a few metal elements.