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Joined: November 06 2012
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Topic: Killing Joke vs. Black Flag Posted: December 21 2014 at 09:28
Killing Joke vs. Black Flag
With their heavy metal infused goth rock sound, Killing Joke created an industrial atmosphere before industrial was a genre. Their soot-covered dissonance inspired several hardcore, industrial, and grunge acts in America.
Also infusing heavy metal into their punk, Black Flag were one of the progenitors to hardcore. But they were experimental enough to warrant inclusion with one of the later English groups. Below is their most famous song, but, after their first album, they went on to write songs with atonal riffs and solos.
Both bands used hefty amounts of dissonance and incorporated heavy metal into their sound.
Joined: April 01 2009
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Posted: December 21 2014 at 09:31
Black Flag was one of the groups I grew up with, so hard not to vote for them. Never heard much Killing Joke around that time, and I've tried to get into them recently but nothing's really clicked yet. Black Flag gets the vote.
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Joined: April 12 2008
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Posted: December 21 2014 at 09:32
Man, this is a hard one. Very different bands but I think at this point Killing Joke were the band out of the two whom I've listened the most to and have done the most to expand my music horizons. It's thanks to in part them and in part Swans that I "get" industrial/noise music at all.
Black Flag might be the "objectively" better group out of the two, though, in that their discography doesn't have anywhere as many weak spots not counting the recent re-union.
"The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
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Posted: December 21 2014 at 09:38
I think Black Flag have plenty of weak spots in their discography, to be honest, though I can't speak for Killing Joke. Flag were a very flawed band and I think Damaged is the only full album they made which seems unified and focused. Then they got caught in a legal mess with their record company and couldn't put any records out for a couple of years. Once that hiatus was up (and they'd been touring nonstop in the interim), records came out like water out of a tap, and many of them seemed very hurried and patchy. Some fantastic individual moments (I'm the One, My War, most of the In My Head album, Black Coffee, etc etc) but kind of sloppy and without a lot of help in the production department. SST put out some great albums, but not many of them had a great sound.
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It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased.
Joined: April 12 2008
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Posted: December 21 2014 at 09:42
Killing Joke have a very long and varied discography, with some of their albums not doing that much for me. In Black Flag's case I even find some of their worse albums to be interesting failures, or maybe not as much "bad" as "I just don't understand it myself yet".
Either way it's KJ I'm most likely to dig out an album by and listen to these days. Same kind of characteristically 1970s/1980s British dystopian futuristic vibe to much of their music as I get from most of J. G. Ballard's novels, and I frankly find that aesthetic more interesting than BF's.
"The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
Joined: March 29 2013
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Posted: December 21 2014 at 17:16
HolyMoly wrote:
SST put out some great albums, but not many of them had a great sound.
I'm a Rollins maniac so Black Flag gets my vote by a mile but I totally agree with you...Spot was a horrific producer. The Minutemen albums didn't seem to suffer too much (except The Politics of Time which sounds miserable) but most of the Flag albums sound awful. The production on Damaged really takes away from what I think is their best material and Henry's grittiest performance.
Too bad Steven Wilson won't do a remaster of the Black Flag catalog
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Posted: December 21 2014 at 17:38
The Black Flag
"Nobody's Gonna Change My World That's Something To Unreal" Lyrics that i live my life by-from Black Sabbath's Technical Ecstasy's track You Won't Change Me
Joined: April 01 2009
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Posted: December 21 2014 at 20:00
The.Crimson.King wrote:
HolyMoly wrote:
SST put out some great albums, but not many of them had a great sound.
I'm a Rollins maniac so Black Flag gets my vote by a mile but I totally agree with you...Spot was a horrific producer. The Minutemen albums didn't seem to suffer too much (except The Politics of Time which sounds miserable) but most of the Flag albums sound awful. The production on Damaged really takes away from what I think is their best material and Henry's grittiest performance.
Too bad Steven Wilson won't do a remaster of the Black Flag catalog
i personally hope he does Husker Du first. They need even more help.
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It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased.
Joined: April 12 2008
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Posted: December 22 2014 at 04:17
The.Crimson.King wrote:
Too bad Steven Wilson won't do a remaster of the Black Flag catalog
I think that's more something Kurt Ballou from Converge might be up to.
"The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
Joined: March 21 2008
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Posted: December 22 2014 at 09:40
Pandemonium - KJ (from 1994) have ceveral of the best metal riffs produced by a band, title.track, Millenium and two or three other tracks have balls to the walls heavy riffs--
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Posted: December 23 2014 at 08:57
Horizons wrote:
God, that Killing Joke debut is just. Wow.
Absolutely!
They have quite the varied discography (I enjoy both the borderline industrial metallic style of 'Pandemonium' and the gothic college rock vibe of 'Brighter Than a Thousand Suns', although the debut still hits the hardest for me.
Black Flag is an interesting case, in that they were one of my favorite groups growing up, not just for 'Damaged' but also the weird avant nature of 'In My Head'. I also like the plodding doom side of My War's second half for some reason. Thing is, nothing Killing Joke did was as obnoxious and lousy as Flag's 'Loose Nut', and 'Slip It In' is pretty douchy as well (I hate the title track except that the main riff is admittedly quite cool).
So I'm giving Killing Joke the nod...although just barely.
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Killing Joke vs. Black Flag
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HolyMoly wrote:
