Killing Joke - Follow The Leaders

The single “Follow The Leaders” was a foot-stomping track, a pulsing sequencer line, and Youth’s thick bass line giving it an almost Giorgio Moroder-esque dancefloor energy. Ferguson erupts repeatedly in massive, tumbling outbursts like he’s playing standing up. The chorus is another chant-along written about Thatcher, "Do you believe them?" is witheringly relevant. The playing around with supposed genre boundaries doesn't hurt either; the beatbox/synth loop pulse of "Follow The Leaders" crossed with the more brusque blasts from the core band, suggests its eventual path in later years, while "Tension" lets the slithering funk heart of the band burst forth even more strongly. The retreat from empathy and communication doesn’t prevent inventive guitar work that hides steady, rhythmic alterations against repetitious, thumping drums (especially emphasizing Ferguson’s insistent, implacable beats) the postmodern dance. Listen to Follow The Leaders and hear the birth of techno/rock/industrial music.

Killing Joke, Barrowland, Glasgow 2018

“Are you enjoying Brexit?” inquired frontman Jaz Coleman with a glint in his eye, as a prelude to unleashing their 1981 single Follow The Leaders, while his own ambivalence towards the EU was evident in European Super State, a trancey industrial anthem – because all Killing Joke songs are anthems at heart – with jagged interjections from guitarist Geordie, whose casual brilliance remains a dynamic foil for Coleman’s wired derangement. 

Ripped from the original 10” single to MP3 @ 320kbps                      

A.     Follow The Leaders

B1.  Follow The Leaders (Dub)

B2.  Tension