Outside the Gate

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Professional reviews
Outside the Gate

Studio album by Killing Joke
Released	1988
Genre	Post-punk
Label	EG Records
Producer(s)	Jaz Coleman, Geordie Walker
All Music Guide link
Killing Joke chronology
Brighter Than a Thousand Suns (1986)	Outside the Gate (1988)	The Courtauld Talks (1989)

Outside the Gate is the seventh album by English post-punk group Killing Joke and is the most controversial release among their fans. It differs from all other Killing Joke albums in that the dominant instrument is the synthesiser instead of the guitar. Whilst guitarist Geordie Walker is present, his role is much reduced and both bassist Paul Raven and drummer "Big Paul" Ferguson were fired by singer/keyboard player Jaz Coleman during the recording of the album. It is often considered to be more of a Coleman solo album than a true Killing Joke release. Judged purely on its own merits it is musically very ambitious and makes the greatest use of Coleman's classical compositional skills of any Killing Joke album to date. Coleman has stated that the band's record company forced him (and Walker) to release the album under the Killing Joke flag in order to best recoup its considerable production costs. For example, Coleman claims that £15,000 was spent just in trying to record Ferguson's drums, before he was fired and entirely replaced by session player Jimmy Copley. The album was not promoted with a tour and Coleman and Walker temporarily disbanded the group after its release as they became embroiled in a lengthy legal battle to extricate themselves from their recording contract.