Killing Time is the debut studio album by American experimental rock band Massacre. It was released in September, 1981, through record label Celluloid. It consists of a compilation of recordings made at Martin Bisi's OAO studio in Brooklyn, New York in June, 1981, and live recordings taken from their April, 1981 Paris concerts. The group disbanded shortly after, eventually reforming in 1998 with Charles Hayward replacing Maher on drums and further recording three more albums. Killing Time was generally well received by critics.
AllMusic called it "one of the most obscure and most wonderful" albums to come out of the early 1980s downtown avant-garde scene.[1]Pitchfork Media opined that it "belongs in a pretty select group of great, instrumental avant-rock albums".[4] A BBC review describe Massacre as "an unholy union of The Shadows, Captain Beefheart, Derek Bailey and Funkadelic", and called Killing Time "genius".[2]
In a review of the 2005 CD re-issue of the album in the music journal Notes, Rick Anderson said that "[the] music remains as fresh and exciting today as it was 25 years ago, and is a vital document of a wonderful and all-too-brief period in New York's musical history".[5]
Re-issue
Killing Time was re-issued on RecRec Music in 1993 with six extra tracks, and on Fred Records in 2005 with eight extra tracks, including a cover of "F.B.I." by The Shadows. The Fred re-issue is a re-mastered copy of the 1982 Japanese release on Recommended Records Japan. It also corrected the original LP's tracks so as to be heard as originally intended, namely "at the correct speed and pitch and without added reverb" which had been altered by a "meddling engineer".[2][5][6]
Track listing
All tracks are written by Massacre, except as noted
[1]