The almighty Killing Joke, have dropped a new 4 track EP today, “Lord of Chaos”.  Dark times in the world, equally dark music from Jaz Coleman and crew – but you would expect nothing less from them at this stage.. 

The EP is made up of two brand new songs, the title track and Total, plus a couple of remixes of tracks featured on 2015’s “Pylon” album. 

For the title track, Killing Joke are in fine form.  It has that epic industrial metal flavour that we all love from the band, but it’s equally full of groove thanks to the thundering rhythm section, and something you could dance to if you felt compelled.  

In the press release for the song, the legendary Jaz Coleman had this to say; “I’ve never known anything like the time we are living in now; not since the Cuban Missile crisis but now in comparison we have multiple flash points…Lord of Chaos is about complex systems failure, when technology overloads and A.I. misreads the enemies intentions.”

There you have it.  Bleak subject matter indeed, backed by music that somehow compliments it AND stands in stark defiance. 

“Total” is the second track, and another new one.  This is a bit of a throwback to a more gothic sounding Killing Joke, and reminds of a heavier version of The Cure.  I really like it, possibly more than “Lord of Chaos”. 

The last two tracks are remixes of “Big Buzz” from Pylon, and “Delete in Dub”.  They are what they are, with “Big Buzz” being the better of the two, and at least for me more listenable.  I just don’t like remixes very much at all – I’ll take the originals.  

7/10

Shayne McGowan.