Napalm Death are one of the most virulent bands in metal: the legendary UK grindcore crew's violent, stream-of-consciousness operates like a punk pandemic. Fed by the cesspools of unrest and corruption in the world, their inspiration flares up and runs wild, feeding off whatever styles are at the ready. Sometimes their visceral sound skews hardcore punk, and sometimes it's more death-metal influenced. On any given record, the approach largely depends on how they approach their muses—the scum of the earth—and fortunately for their fans, there's plenty of scum to be found in today's state of affairs.
Despite some early instability in their ranks—particularly between when they got their start in 1981 and 1992’s landmark album *Utopia Banished—*and the continued procession of new bands on the block, Napalm Death haven’t relented one bit. If anything, their path of destruction has grown ever wider, fueled, as always, by the grotesque workings of the musical and political communities that surround them, drawn increasingly closer together by the mores of the digital age. The band's most recent effort, 2012’s Utilitarian, ripped apart these themes at length, and longtime vocalist Barney Greenway and company’s new album Apex Predator - Easy Meat is similarly strident in its determination to keep the listening experience kinetically satisfying and altogether disgusting.
Three decades in, Napalm Death’s famously mercurial lineup has solidified into a concise unit: guitarist Mitch Harris, bassist (and longest tenured member) Shane Embury, drummer Danny Herrera, and that maniacal frontman Mark "Barney" Greenway. Embury and Herrera are the whiplash-inducing back end, hammering out tempos atop which Harris proudly stands and slashes, bolstering his dissonant chords with high-register yelps and screeches. And, even at 45, Greenway's role as vocal juggernaut remains secure as he continues to gleefully shove aside whatever structures his bandmates assemble in his path. On Apex Predator, Russ Russell’s mixing allows you to catch every strain, every gasp, every last drop of spit. From the way Greenway huffs and puffs on "How the Years Condemn", you’d think the guy was the Big Bad Wolf’s cousin from a nuclear dystopia. A closer look at Embury's lyrics reveals instead an ordinary man, haunted by the friends he's lost and desperate to better his life so as not to sully their memory. Napalm Death's splatterhouse hijinks are rooted in a more profound sense of psychological pain this time around, and that their ability to convey that pain hinges largely on its voice.
What’s more, he remains capable of embodying a dizzying number of roles, adopting the cadence of a murderous carnival barker one moment (on "Smash a Single Digit" and "Metaphorically Screw You") and an unholy clergy member the next (the title track, an almost meditational nod to Swans). Don’t come into this thing expecting a solo spree; aside from John "Bilbo" Cook’s delicious guest riff on "Hierarchies" (touted humorously in the liner notes as the "token guitar solo"), the axework on Apex Predator - Easy Meat skews workmanlike, with Harris welding together hardcore punk, chaotic, hyper-speed grindcore, and just a hint of groove metal to make the acrid medicine go down smoother.
Way back in the mothball-scented archives of YouTube there’s this old TV interview with Jim Carrey in which he half-seriously declares his allegiance to thrash metal, launching into an impassioned parody of Napalm Death. "Some day, this guy’s gonna wanna slow down and do some duets," he grins, launching into a simulation of what that might sound like. What's crazy is that Carrey's mockery ended up being half fulfilled. On Apex Predator, Napalm Death have scaled back the mach-speed sections of yore, specifically with regards to the drums, and the album does feature a screamed duet of sorts with the shattered dialogue of "Beyond the Pale". What’s more, as on 2012's Utilitarian and in other scattered corners of their discography, there are periods of clean singing that would've seemed unthinkable back in the days of Harmony Corruption. Here, it's more interestingly interwoven than in the past. And it’s still a Napalm Death record through and through—which means shredded eardrums and tinnitus for days. After all this time, we’d expect nothing less.
