Audio CD review:
Killing Joke - Wilful Days

Killing Joke - Wilful Days

Band: Killing Joke Title: Wilful Days Rating: Release Date: 13 June, 1995 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Are You Receiving 2: Follow The Leaders (Dub) 3: Sun Goes Down 4: Dominator (Extended) 5: Me Or You 6: Wilful Days 7: Eighties (Serious Dance Mix) 8: A New Day 9: Love Like Blood (Gestalt Mix) 10: The Madding Crowd 11: Ecstacy (The Extended Mix) 12: America (Extended) 13: Change (Re-Evolution Mix)

Customer Reviews Dance Day Indeed It also gives the vinyl versions I own a rest. I bought this b-side and rarities compilation to fill in the gaps in my Killing Joke collection. The track listing is somewhat misleading as the track titled A New Day is actually the b-side Dance Day. Not a bad collection at all, but don't expect the version of A New Day with all of the vocals. Where's the song Flock the B Side you may ask? You'll have to buy the 2005 CD pressing of Ha! Killing Joke Live to get that one along with its wonderful a-side counterpart, Birds of a Feather. How about Pssyche, Follow the Leaders Dub or a handful of others? Try the box set Chaos for Breakfast for that. Poor completists. We'll keep shelling out money for the precious scraps. Unessential remix/b-side compilation It's not really quite what anyone would have hoped as it leaves off many essential pieces, and much of this is available elsewhere. "Willful Days" is a compilation of rare Killing Joke remixes, b-sides, etc. Of the thirteen tracks, seven of them are remixes-- most of these are fairly extraneous, I'm not really big on the concept of remixes for this band to begin with, although the dub mix of "Follow the Leaders" is decent enough (for that matter, so is the gestalt mix of "Love Like Blood"). The real gems are the rarities-- "Are You Receiving" was on the band's first single (the entire thing is available as part of the "Chaos for Breakfast" set), its a decent enough punk song, "Sun Goes Down" (also available elsewhere), a "Fire Dances" era b-side is superb-- tribal rhythms, muted guitars, and a haunting vocal. While they're both well loved, I don't rate either the pop song "Me Or You" or its roasting guitar driven b-side, "Willful Days" all that highly, the latter is decent enough, but its chorus and bizarre pop vocal delivery ("yeah yeah, willful days") just gets to me. "A New Day" is a good enough song in the style of the "Night Time" material, but has this totally annoying echo on the vocal that ruins the song. Oddly enough, the same can be said for "The Maddening Crowd", from the following year-- did the band develop some sort of echo obsession? If you're a collector, you'll want this, anyone else can skip it. Good, but could have been better Some of it is great to have, especially if you're a completist who's come to their career late in the game (when the original vinyl is hard to come by). This is a compilation of rarer B-sides and remixes from the pre-Extremities era Killing Joke. Be warned, however: that version of "A New Day" (the one non-album single I've always wanted) is NOT the regular 7" version, but is the b-side "dub" version with half of the verses missing (not as in, we've got 1 and 4, but not 2 and 3. . . more like you only get half of each verse). A minor quibble, perhaps, but it soured the overall purchase for me, which is why I've only given it a 4 instead of a full 5. . You can see a complete list of all Killing Joke discography, or go back to the Killing Joke tabs