June 23, 2000 Guardian article by Dave Simpson
Who the hell are...? The Damage Manual
So, who the hell are they?
Former Ministry / Revolting Cocks frontman Chris Connelly (raging vocals), Killing Joke's Geordie Walker (shattered-glass guitar), and from seminal Metal Box-era Public Image Limited, Jah Wobble (sea-dredging bass) and Martin Atkins (drums that sound like collapsing houses). Add various loops, synths, scratches and thermonuclear explosions and you have the world's first
industrial punk supergroup. Or, as one US mag has claimed, the "first great band of the 21st Century".Appearance...
Sinister, sleazily ageing men who look like they've spent several years in institutions.That lot? In a band together?!
It is a bit like that, yes, although the boys have calmed down since the days when Wobble chased Sid Vicious with an axe and Connelly greeted interviewers by offering them heroin. Probably content that PiL, Killing Joke etc spawned the "industrial" genre, Geordie went off to have kids, Atkins played in Nine Inch Nails projects while Wob enjoyed a religiously tinged solo career.So what brought them together? A chance meeting at Sunday school?
Careful. It seems like they were bored with the sedate wholesomeness of it all and decided to create some, er, Damage. Although they hadn't spoken for 16 years, Atkins put the call into Wob, Geordie called Wob by chance, Atkins knew Chris from their 90s project Murder Inc, and voila. They insist they are not the traditional matey / pompous supergroup and reveal their rehearsals have been typified by tension. As Wobble proclaims, contentedly, "There have been murders..."Crikey. So what do they sound like?
Pulverising, magnificent and not unlike an amalgam of their infamous bands, with modern knobs on. The menace in their music makes a refreshing alternative to this year's anodyne pop.Buy if:
You hate chart music and people who think Blink 182 are noisy.Don't buy if:
You work on a building site, and hear this unholy racket every day.So where can I hear them?
A seven-track EP - 1 - is released on Monday on Invisible, with an album following in September.