Utopia banished --- Napalm Death --- 1992 (Realtivity)
Okay well I've survived Death Metal, Black Metal and Pagan Metal but now I'm scared. Grindcore is a term that freezes me to the bone, but somehow I've added Napalm Death to my list of bands I need to cover for Metal Month (damn you, "Metal Hammer"!) and I'm committed now. But I fear this is going to be the biggest noise assault on my poor ears since I listened to Carcass, what seems weeks ago now. And may be, depending on when this is getting posted. To add to that, there are a total of fifteen tracks on this, though mercifully most are quite short, some less than two minutes long. I looked for other Napalm Death albums that had less tracks but they all seem to have about the same, so I decided to go with this one.
The title of the first track doesn't provide any hope for me, though "Discordance" opens with what appears to be a radio broadcast of some sort, then a snarling guitar, sounding like a raging beast waiting to be let loose, growls in the distance threateningly. It's one of those short tracks, about a minute and a half, then "I abstain" opens with decent enough metal guitar, and when the vocal comes in it's --- surprise, surprise! --- a growler, but considering what I've suffered though, sorry, listened to in the last few months it's not the shock it would have been before I started this. It's certainly not melodic, but then I wasn't expecting that. To be honest, I was expecting just noise really, and this is at least music of a sort.
Good guitar solo with the drums pounding at a hundred miles an hour, and it's one of the longer tracks at over three minutes, but Napalm Death play so fast that it's over fairly quickly and we're into "Dementia access". Another good hard guitar opening then a scream from Mark "Barney" Greenway, before he's off growling and roaring again. I don't know: Batlord I'm sure still thinks I'm a girl in disguise and listens to this with his amp at ten and his windows wide open, but I think I'm getting a little used to this, perhaps inured to the sort of Metal I would prior to this never have dreamed of listening to. Not that I'd listen to Napalm Death again --- I'd rather have my head removed with a blunt spoon --- but I reckon I can make it through this.
"Christening of the blind" is another longer track, and bit more of a boogie-along rhythm to it, but I honestly don't see me reporting too much in the way of difference in the tracks here; they all already sound fairly similar. Drummer goes a bit mad(der) near the end of this. "Idiosyncratic" kicks the tempo up --- yes, it's possible --- while "Aryanisms" has some pretty energetic guitar (look, I'm tring to find good things to say about this album, or at least not be too critical of it ok?) and there's a good solo at the end of "Judicial slime", but yeah it's all sounding pretty much the same to me.
I should point out that growly as he is, I can at least understand what Greenway is singing, which is not always the case with this sort of vocal style, so points for that. I guess Napalm Death only have one speed though, and you wouldn't want to get in their way! "Exile" gets a tiny bit slower, but that's still faster than most bands, possibly even punk ones. My old friend melody of course doesn't even get a look in: it's all about power, aggression and speed with little thought for song structure, or indeed, songs. Rather surprisingly, the closer, "Contemptuous", sounds like it might actually slow to human levels! The drums are discernible now, single beats as opposed to a wall of noise, the guitar is playing heavy but normally, as opposed to, well, a wall of noise. Greenway's still growling, sort of chanting really, and damned if something resembling a melody of sorts isn't creeping into the song, which turns out to be the longest on the album at just shy of four and a half minutes. An unexpected end, without a doubt.
TRACKLISTING
1. Discordance
2. I abstain
3. Dementia access
4. Christening of the blind
5. The world keeps turning
6. Idiosyncratic
7. Aryanisms
8. Cause and effect (Part II)
9. Judicial slime
10. Distorting the medium
11. Got time to kill
12. Upward and uninterested
13. Exile
14. Awake (To a life of misery)
15. Contemptuous
Hands up all those who thought I'd like this music? Hmm. Not a one. Well, no surprise. You all know my limits by now, and Grindcore was always going to push those. But in fairness it's not as messy or noisy as I thought it would be. I honestly expected almost discordant fuzz with nothing I could even latch onto as a tune, but though this music certainly doesn't appeal to me, it's not the worst. Given that, it would be a very cold day in Hell before I'd listen to it again, but it's interesting that it didn't break the sort of boundaries I had expected it to. I thought it would be totally alien, and, well, it's not.
Just not something I ever intend listening to again, if the Metal Gods are kind.
(Or am I being too generous here?)
Read more here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napalm_Death