Throes of Creativity in the Jaws of Convention

Written by: Tom Wilson - Sense Music Media

In the 80s, NAPALM DEATH were genre innovators and musical trendsetters, but the band’s most dynamic and interesting releases started once they left Earache Records, and I am prepared to die on this hill. Over the last two decades, they have taken the grind blueprint and constantly mutated it. Their first release in five years since 2015’s Apex Predator – Easy Meat, bassist Shane Embury has wrote the majority of the music here, with Mitch Harris still largely out of the fold since leaving to handle family matters in 2014, though he and live guitarist John Cooke (who also plays with Shane in VENOMOUS CONCEPT) contributed to the recording process. While Harris’ trademark backing screams are sorely missed, Throes… is a strong and remarkably diverse album. NAPALM DEATH wrote the book on grind, but are under no obligation to follow it. If Barney decided to play the bagpipes on the next album, I wouldn’t be surprised.

The Review

Fuck the Factoid’s claustrophobic assault soon opens up into a vast guitar landscape akin to Taste the Poison from 2000’s Enemy of the Music Business. Backlash Just Because alternates between Diatribes-era pounding and hyperactive, off-kilter riffage. Seething with rage, and bursting with the energy of a man half his age, Barney Greenway’s vocals are a force of nature. Contagion’s frenzied attack veers into a chorus of almost doom-metal vocals. Invigorating Clutch slows things down into a punishing groove and molasses-thick riffs, before Zero Gravitas Chamber roars to life at full throttle. Acting in Gouged Faith is the musical equivalent of falling from the top of a very tall tree and hitting every branch on the way down – a disorienting tumble of spasmodic riffs and tempo shifts. Joie De Ne Pas Vivre (“joy of not living”) is perhaps the biggest curveball – no guitars, just snarling vocals over an almost percussive bass and Danny Herrera’s thundering drums, like MINISTRY with a Gallic twist.

It is telling that, of the three singles released to promote this album, two of them aren’t grind at all. One, Amoral is a mid-tempo stomp, with lyrical spite and social commentary. The other, A Bellyful of Salt and Spleen, closes the album, and it’s an absolute monster. NAPALM DEATH have not been shy in showing their love for avant-garde noisemakers SWANS on their last few albums, and it is on full display here. Slow, lumbering, and enormous, Embury’s bass is heavier than a black hole, and Greenway’s baritone is almost Gregorian. The video, depicting people taking Instagram selfies at the beach as drowned refugees wash up behind them – and a soaked, dripping Greenway looks on in horror – is as troubling and thought-provoking as NAPALM DEATH’s best material.

The Verdict

It’s their genre, and NAPALM DEATH can do what they want with it. After sixteen albums, they answer to no one.

8/10

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