With Extremities, The Albini demos and live beginnings ’88, fans are afforded a peek behind the curtain of the Killing Joke cabaret at one of the most fascinating moments in the band’s long, eventful history.
While the reunion years of Killing Joke from 2008 onwards carry an air of (relative) harmony and stability (until guitarist Geordie Walker’s untimely death in 2023), almost any time from the band’s prior 30-year-history is a treasure trove of legend, myth, carnage and magic.
In a history filled with fallouts, breakdowns, disappearances and violence—amongst the many artistic (and occasional commercial) highs—1988 marks a significant point in the band’s often turbulent history.
Drummer and founding member Paul Ferguson was out, long-term bassist Paul Raven was also out (albeit more temporarily) and vocalist Jaz Coleman was pulling what was left of the band into a convoluted musical direction rather at odds with Killing Joke’s post-punk origins.
Given the negative reception garnered by that year’s Outside the Gate album and the band’s subsequent legal battles to extract themselves from their contractual obligations with their then label, it may be no exaggeration to say that Killing Joke were in the midst of an existential crisis.
Enter former PiL drummer Martin Atkins.
Within two years, a rejuvenated Killing Joke (soon to be joined once again by Paul Raven) would release what endures to this day as one of the band’s most intense musical statements, Extremities, Dirt and Various Repressed Emotions.
But of course, getting the band onto a different track would not be an overnight affair. According to Atkins, there were some internal struggles to define the musical direction the band would take, with himself and Walker favoring a harder-edged sound than Coleman had been exploring.
Extremities, The Albini demos and live beginnings ’88 opens with several tracks from the early, instrumental “Black Cassette” sessions undertaken by Atkins and Walker—overseen by the late Steve Albini.
These sessions, though ultimately not being used for the final album, would set a marker for the direction the album would ultimately take.
While “Money” and “Scrape/North of the border” offer an opportunity to hear early, stripped down versions of tracks that would ultimately go on to be honed and rerecorded for the final album, hearing this release’s second track (simply titled “Unreleased”) gives an insight into the atmosphere and sounds that were swirling around in the pair’s heads.
The following track “Money (Reflex Mix)” is also largely instrumental (aside from a recurring sample) and does appear to be either the same or very close to “Money Is Not Our God (Hideous Remix), previously included in the double-CD release Inside Extremities, Mixes, Rehearsals And Live released back in 2007 on Candlelight Records.
Though that release also included a live set of various Extremities tracks, recorded in France in 1991, it is the second half of this release that offers listeners something particularly unique, being a sample of Extremities tracks (or outtake in the case of “The Fanatic”) taken from the band’s first show with Atkins on drums from December 20, 1988.
Of these final four tracks, the penultimate “Intravenous” is particularly explosive and powerful, with Atkins’ drums coming off like a series of detonations as the song moves towards its climax.
Certainly, given the existence of the aforementioned release from 2007, Extremities, The Albini demos and live beginnings ’88 is not an entirely new experience for Killing Joke obsessives, but it is the first time that fans can enjoy hearing the band on vinyl in this moment of reassembling before their 1990 studio rebirth.
For those who do not worship at the altar of the mercurial talent that was the late Geordie Walker, it would be a stretch to call this an essential release. However, for those who continue to revel in the enduring power of that great guitar voice (and indeed great band), this is a treat.
buy Extremities, The Albini demos and live beginnings ’88 from Overdrive
