The song is like a chant, an incessant, pummeling assault that certainly resonated in the industrial rock that Big Black and Ministry practiced.īut while those latter bands used drum machines and sequencers for a mechanical sound, Killing Joke looped themselves, real-time, with drummer Paul Ferguson tribally pounding his drums with a four-on-the-floor, danceable beat. Night Time, from 1985, finds the band more than five years into its career, with Coleman singing - as opposed to shout-singing - for pretty much the first time. One main, perhaps, crucial difference between the bands is that while Kurt Cobain practiced whisper-to-a-scream vocal dynamics, Killing Joke's Jaz Coleman was almost always full-on in his approach, with a terrifying growl of a voice that is similar to that of Motörhead's Lemmy. Sure, a riff does not make a song completely, but Killing Joke were playing aggressive pop/rock fueled with alienated lyrics ten years before Nirvana.
"Come As You Are" took the main guitar riff from Killing Joke's anthem "Eighties" and merely slowed it down. Two songs from the band's landmark Nevermind, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Come As You Are," not only took influence, but lifted specific guitar riffs from older songs the former's lick was recycled from Boston's "More Than a Feeling," sprinkled with a little Black Sabbath, and served with some spirit of the Pixies. Of course, the men of Nirvana went out of their way to acknowledge influences that ranged from early-20th century folk musicians to punk and post-punk rock. As innovative as Nirvana were, to hear some fans and music journalists laud the band for its combination of punk rock aggression and pop tunefulness, one would be forgiven for thinking the Seattle-based band existed in a vacuum and came out of nowhere.
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