Killing Time is the debut album by American experimental rock trio 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 City in June 1981, and live recordings taken from their April 1981 Paris concerts. The group disbanded shortly after, eventually reforming 17 years later with Charles Hayward replacing Maher on drums. They recorded one more studio album and three live albums for John Zorn’s Tzadik Records. Killing Time was generally well received by critics of the time.
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".[6] A BBC review describe Massacre as "an unholy union of The Shadows, Captain Beefheart, Derek Bailey and Funkadelic", and called Killing Time "genius".[2]
Howard Mandel wrote in a review in DownBeat that on Killing Time Massacre show that they are as "aggressive" as their name, and "more purposeful" than their debut album's title.[3] He said they manage their "tight trio stop-times as though their foreboding sound was as natural as bebop".[3] Mandel concluded that Maher is "solid", Laswell "flexible and alert", and Frith "possessed by electric possibilities", and added that "[t]hey're convinced of what they're up to, and that certainty leaps from the grooves."[3]
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".[7]
FACT ranked it the 26th best album of the 1980s, calling it "a furiously addictive brand of semi-improvised, nitro-enhanced instrumental rock – a path Ruins and Battles would duly troop down decades later."[8]
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 Records 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][7][9]
In 2016, RēR Megacorp re-issued Killing Time on a three-sided double-LP. Sides A and B contains the original LP release with the sound corrected as featured on the Fred Records release. Side C contains all the extra tracks that appeared on the Fred Records CD.
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