Killing Joke warm up for The Royal Albert Hall at The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea: 'A majestic brooding menace' | Review

However, it has become somewhat abused. Albums that are distinctly less than ‘all-killer, no-filler’ now get the treatment.

This show at The Wedge is the first of four low-key warm-up dates for Killing Joke’s sold out Royal Albert Hall show later this month. There, as here, band are playing their first two albums in full. But rest assured these are dyed-in-the-wool, hugely influential post-punk classics.

It’s a bold move when track one, side one of their self-titled debut is Requiem, which remains one of their best-loved songs some 43 years down the line. Will they peak too early?

The Wedge date sold out in under an hour and anticipation was high for the chance to see the pioneering band in such intimate confines.

When that throbbing electronic pulse sounds at the start of Requiem, there is a huge cheer.

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Frontman Jaz Coleman is impossible to take your eyes off throughout. With his face painted red and his leering thousand-yard stares he looks positively devilish, not to mention the sinister ‘dancing’.

Coleman introduces the band and bids us ‘welcome to nuclear war’, before the suitably apocalyptic Wardance. Guitarist Geordie pounds out those industrial-strength riffs, while bassist Youth and drummer Paul Ferguson lay down the sinewy, fierce beats. Peaking early should not be problem.

That is until track six, Complications, and Youth’s amp packs up. The other three gamely finish the song, but when it becomes clear this could take a while to fix they leave the stage – ‘Complications during Complications,’ Coleman quips. Business is soon resumed though, and it doesn’t appear to put them off their stride.

After the briefest pause, it’s in to album two, What’s THIS For..! Key single and fan-favourite Follow The Leaders and Madness provide a killer one-two.

For the encores, they stick with B-sides and singles from the period – finishing with a pummelling Pssyche – maintaining the sense of the night as a perfect, hermetically-sealed, time-capsule.

More than four decades down the line, Killing Joke still exude a majestic brooding menace. Seeing it up close like this is a thrill.