Killing Joke at Irving Plaza

Killing Joke formed in England in 1979 during the punk wave, and were perhaps the first of these bands to lean heavily towards heavy metal. The band's line-up became a revolving door, the band's musical direction has changed several times over the course of 16 albums and even the existence of the band has been spotty. Some 30 years after its birth, the original members of Killing Joke reunited, recorded and toured. Vocalist Jaz Coleman, guitarist Kevin "Geordie" Walker, bassist Martin "Youth" Glover and drummer Paul Ferguson are joined by Reza Udhin, who plays guitar, keyboards and synthesizers.

At Irving Plaza tonight, Killing Joke showed its most recent metamorphosis. Once a punk band, Killing Joke now is mostly an industrial band. The band played wall-of-sound hard and heavy grooves throughout the 90-minute performance, virtually all of it to a danceable beat. The music was almost EDM, except that this genre usually has synthesized sounds up front, whereas Killing Joke has them more in the background. Once Killing Joke established these grooves, however, nothing much else happened musically, unlike Skrillex, KMFDM and other contemporary acts who build layers of sound upon their industrial base. If Killing Joke's grooves featured any electric guitar or synthesizer leads, they were too buried in the mix to be significant. Meanwhile, Coleman entertained with an Ozzy Osbourne-like stage presence, but he was far from a great singer, and his melody lines were as repetitive as the band's churning music. Overall, Killing Joke's concert was loud and uptempo enough to course through the body and be enjoyable, but the musicians have a lot of catching up to do if they want to remain relevant in this century.