Killing Joke are set to release a new album on April 2nd, entitled MMXII. The quartet’s first album since 2010’s Absolute Dissent, it again features the band’s full original line-up (Coleman, alongside guitarist Geordie Walker, bassist Youth & drummer Big Paul Ferguson), after their reunion in 2008.
True to Killing Joke form, it feels strongly concerned with the current state of the world, and its track titles reference some of the very specific, ominous issues affecting modern society (‘Pole Shift’, ‘Fema Camp’, ‘Colony Collapse’, ‘Corporate Elect’) as well as more general apocalyptic imagery (‘Rapture’, ‘Trance’).
MMXII is named after the Roman numeral for ‘2012’ – along with the track titles, appropriate for a year when, according to various sources, society as we know it will apparently collapse into rubble. Still, Coleman’s comments on the album strike a fairly upbeat tone. "This year is about getting our collective dreams in order, restoring the biosphere, the idea of well-being as opposed to economic growth, the idea of partnership and co-creation with fellow human beings, moving away from national boundaries and more towards what Schiller and Beethoven were saying in some of their work," he says in the material accompanying the album’s press release.
"If we can concentrate on what it can be, the dream of clean streams, of re-forestation, of permaculture, of disengaging all the banks – identifying all the majority shareholders of the top 100 corporations and dismantling them," he continues. "If we start dreaming of a fairer system and defining what an elite should be – an intellectual powerhouse and not international bankers." Check out the track ‘Rapture’ below:
MMXII will be released on April 2nd through Spinefarm Records/Universal. The album’s tracklist runs as follows:
‘Pole Shift’
‘Fema Camp’
‘Rapture’
‘Colony Collapse’
‘Corporate Elect’
‘In Cythera’
‘Primobile’
‘Glitch’
‘Trance’
‘On All Hallow’s Eve’
