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Napalm Death: Enemy of the music business

29/02/12 || Detox

Do you really need a background story on Napalm Death? You do not. As far as my own listening experience is concerned, however, this will pop my cherry in terms of listening to the first album after my favorite era of theirs (From “Fear emptiness despair“ through “Words from the exit wound“) and even though I’ve been told it’s a bit of a departure from those styles, I’m still really looking forward to being sonically assaulted. This is also the first stage of my plan to get through all of the later Napalm Death material that I hadn’t yet heard (Which is everything except “Time waits for no slave“) before the new album, “Utilitarian“, drops. I consider it safe to say by this point in time that if you consider yourself a big fan of extreme metal and you don’t like at least some of Napalm Death‘s output… then you are both a fool and without good taste. There are a lot of bands in this specific area that I can understand one looking past but, with the varied stylings of this group over the years, they are not one of them. Know that as fact. I’m trying to make strong points with these reviews, not sweet talk and butter up to some sad sack of wasted youth who happens to be reading this. Deal with it.

Now, going into hearing this album I was aware of what some people had said here and there about what I should expect and how they were either super excited about a ‘return to form’ or disappointed about yet more alterations to the group’s sound, but… I personally have never truly cared what anyone else has really had to say about this piece of music or that film or some book somewhere that is the coolest thing ever. Now, you may think that doesn’t make much sense, seeing as I’m writing reviews that are getting somewhat visible internet attention? To a degree, it doesn’t. But that’s the same sentiment that I have towards mix tapes. For the most part, I love making mix tapes and showing people new music. Not because I think I’m better than them, but because I like to share. Receiving them? Not so much. Maybe I’m just cocky, who knows. Anyways, I am straying really far from the point here and I’m already coming close to the end of the second paragraph! Oh god, what have I done?!? The point of all this drivel? I knew what people were saying about the album, but I really couldn’t give two shits… so I went in with a completely open mind, hoping for the best. That’s all one should ever really do when hearing a piece of music for the first time. Hell, more often that not do you know what I base standards for albums on when I’m looking for something new to check out? The cover art and comparisons to other bands that I already enjoy, along with occasionally just going out on blind faith to try something new that you may not have heard because of the style of music you normally enjoy. That’s it, enough of my nonsense!

The opening track on the album, “Taste the poison“, is a good example of what’s in store for the rest of your listening displeasure. Albeit a short track under two minutes, the song is a pummeling number that puts on display the fact that Shane Embury has one of the best sounding bass tones in extreme metal. While coming off heavy, fast, catchy and memorable the track leads nicely into “Next on the list“, which showcases some of the nice melodic elements Napalm Death had begun implementing into their sound during the 90’s. From here moving forward you get kind of a mixed bag in terms of direction. First off you have songs like “Constitutional hell“, “Vermin“ and “Can’t play, won’t pay“ which are all considerably heavy, but lack anything memorable in terms of the first half of the track… yet pick it up and make outstanding second halves. It’s weird and shows that the band has some kinks to work out, but the ends of those tracks more than make up for the average tendencies of the starting sections. Of the three, “Can’t play, won’t play“ is far the most enjoyable, as even when the drummer is doing typically blasts in monotonous fashion for long periods the guitar work is both really refined and memorable.

When looking at the production of the album, if you’ve heard “Words from the exit wound“ or “Inside the torn apart“ then you should have a pretty good idea of what to expect. Nothing is super sharp, but everything is pretty clearly audible and nothing is muffled up nor does it come off as chaotic in a mixing sense. The drums tend to be the least interesting of the instrumental elements, but they work for what the band is doing and the speed at which most of the songs are designed. Sometimes Danny Herrera seems bored like when he’s just blasting away and riding the china cymbal for good portions of “Volume of neglect“, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t take some considerable talent to continuously play at the speeds required here. One of my favorite tracks on the album, “Cure for the common complaint“ actually reminds me of a modern Goatwhore track without all of their flashy guitar work or blackened thrash metal vocals. Somewhat similar, “Thanks for nothing“ has a very punk metal vibe throughout, displaying one of the fastest tempos on the album while not losing any sense of melody, memorability or overall song direction. It’s around this point that you realize just how beautiful the guitars sound on this album on nearly every song. Who cares if Napalm Death doesn’t have guitar solos? With what they’re doing, the sound they’re getting and the songwriting they seem to pull out of thin air who needs them? Nearly all of the riffs seem aimed at ripping your throat out, yet they’re still really fucking catchy and home to a considerable sense of melody. Elsewhere, the vocals delivered by Barney Greenway are as gut wrenching as ever and although they can be grating to those who aren’t fans of the death growl technique (But then why would you be listening to this type of music?), he’s gotten to the point where most of the time you can actually make out the lyrical jargon he’s spewing forth.

Unfortunately, when closing out the album the band starts to drag their feet a little bit. While “Necessary evil“ has to have one of the catchiest choruses I’ve ever heard in a Napalm Death song, the rest of the track suffers from the fact that, while it does have some catchy guitar riffs and a few cool sections, it is fairly forgettable. But from there on, the final four songs just do almost nothing for me, with each one coming off as a bit less interesting than the last. This is an example of a band with a strong amount of good ideas who just stretched them a bit too thin at the end. The only redeeming moment during the end of the album is the mid-tempo paced second half of the final track “Fracture in the equation“, where the melodic aspects seem to come out of nowhere to try and save the track before the weird spoken outro comes into visibility. All in all, this is still a really strong piece of the Napalm Death catalog and I’m looking forward to checking out the next three to see what they can deliver. Although not as good as the 3 prior albums, this is still worthy of 7 utopian banishments out of 10. But don’t take my point of view for it! Go spend some quality time with Napalm Death by the fire and mentally murder your senses.

Information
Released: 2000
Label: Dream Catcher Inc.
Website: www.napalmdeath.org
Band
Barney Greenway: vocals
Jesse Pintado: guitars
Mitch Harris: guitars
Shane Embury: bass
Danny Herrera: drums

Tracklist
01. Taste the Poison
02. Next on the List
03. Constitutional Hell
04. Vermin
05. Volume of Neglect
06. Thanks for Nothing
07. Can’t Play, Won’t Pay
08. Blunt Against the Cutting Edge
09. Cure for the Common Complaint
10. Necessary Evil
11. C.S. (Conservative Shithead) (Part II)
12. Mechanics of Deceit
13. (The Public Gets) What the Public Doesn’t Want
14. Fracture in the Equation

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