Search - Killing Joke :: Inside Extremities Mixes Rehearsals & Live

A wealth of material.

Michael Stack | North Chelmsford, MA USA | 04/20/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Killing Joke's 1991 "Extremities, Dirt & Various Repressed Emotions", out of print for years with little likelihood of coming back, has always been a fan favorite. Pretty much doomed from the start, "Extremities..." paired Killing Joke's core of vocalist Jaz Coleman and guitarist Geordie with industrial legend Martin Atkins. Another strong personality alongside Coleman did pretty much result in disaster, with Coleman disbanding Killing Joke (for a few years at least) and Atkins taking the rest to form his short-lived Murder, Inc. project. "Inside Extremities: Mixes, Rehearsals and Live" chronicles this band at their beginning and their end.



The first disc is drawn primarily from the sessions for "Extremities...", with one live track (previously unreleased "The Fanatic") tacked on the end. This disc is something only a fan could love-- from false starts ("Struggle") and warbled demos ("Slipstream") to instrumental demos, this is really not something your casual fan is going to enjoy. Hearing these songs embryonic can occasionally be revealing, but by and large it's nothing I can see myself returning to. The previously unreleased song, "The Fanatic", is a sludgy, gloomy sort of piece that would not have been out of place on the "Extremities" record. It's decent enough, but nothing I'm jumping out of my seat about.



The second disc is a live show from 1991 towards the end of the "Extremities..." touring. The material is about half from that record and about half from the rest of the band's catalog, with a particular emphasis on their first album (six songs are either from there or b-sides). And this is where the real value in this set is-- the performance is tense and energetic, starting with the slow grind of "Inside the Termite Mound" before kicking into overdrive and climaxing without a powerful reading of "Frenzy". Along the way, "Change", "Money Is Not Our God", "Age of Greed" and others get fantastic readings culiminating with encore "Pssyche"-- full of bouncing, screaming energy, with Coleman a man possessed (the sound of the Earth vomiting, even).



Bottom line, the demos and the like are interesting, but not something you'll come back, the live set, however is a blast. Recommended for fans of the band."