Well, it’s been twelve years since Napalm Death let loose the amazing From
Enslavement to Obliteration album, which effectively killed rock and roll
dead in a 21-song blitz of demented ferocity that baffled many, and seemed
even comical at the time, for its passion and power. How is a band capable
of doing that? They seemed to pack more energy and ummph into one 30
second song, like Retreat to Nowhere than other “aggro" bands did in their
entire careers. With their 1987 debutScum, they made punk-rock redundant
and boring. Punk is a Rottting Corpse was the name of a 1982 demo of
theirs, and it’s painfully obvious how true that was/still is.
In 2000 A.D., this band is still plugging along. In an age when punk has
become a fashion statement and tired cliché, that has more to do with
synchronized leaping with your guitar, or making your angst catchy (Darby
Crash spins in his grave as I write this), and marketable, Napalm Death
deliver an entire album devoted to songs about what a pile of shite the
music business had devolved into. I put forth that punk rock nowadays is
more an idea than a sound. John (“Rotten") Lydon is a rich old fart, living
on Balboa Island, California. When he isn’t suing former band-mates on
television, he’s reforming his old group “for the money." He laughs in the
people’s faces, and I can actually appreciate his honesty. His last words on
stage as a Sex Pistol were “Ever get the feeling you’re being cheated?"
There are still people (like my brother, Patrick, who was born after the
glory days of Black Flag) who desperately want punk rock to remain valid.
Yep, he still has a Mohawk, and thinks he’s ‘wild’ for it, even though all
of his friends are punk too. “Mom? Can I please go to the mall, and get
another Exploited shirt? They’re on sale this weekend?" Does anyone aside
from myself see how *wrong that is? Meanwhile, Napalm Death are destroying
punk music, new-metal, jungle, alternative (To what exactly? Not to getting
PAID!), alt. country, r&b, techno, jazz, hip-hop, goth, industrial, drum n
bass, folk, and rock and roll. Utterly. That or they’re crudely re-shaping
it, the way the Velvet Underground once did.
Napalm Death parted company last year with Earache Records, the label that
they put on the map, by filling it to the brim with their side-projects,
friends bands, and almost two dozen studio, ep’s, singles, live albums,
split releases, and videos. It’s unknown what the label will do now, and the
band have since taken their work to Dream Catcher, but the company that
helped sell over a million albums by the “End of Music As We Know It" will
probably survive, even though I’m positive they aren’t really enjoying the
split.
Napalm, however, seem totally renewed by the experience. A good friend of
mine was in a band on Earache, and he likened it to a living hell. After his
group split up, he still had a binding contract with the label, and had to
get *permission from them to have his new bands single released on another
label. It’s a business.
Anyone who tries to simplify it, and say “it’s
this beautiful expression of your art, and you enter into a deal with a
record company ,sell your albums, and then you become pals with them…blah,
blah, blah." has NEVER done anything remotely similar to the real thing.
Money. Money changes everything. It’s funny how some people change their
whole attitude once the concept of actually making a living at this stuff
enters the picture.
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Napalm Death @ Rollingstone.com
That’s the cue for any random sixteen-year old, who
still lives with his mommy to cry “Sellout!"
What I’m enjoying about Enemy of the Music Business right now is the way
99.8% of this fourteen-song effort just sails over my head. Weird, dissonant
riffing piles up with drums that seem to be imploding and you feel a strong
sense of claustrophobia when playing this cd. The first thing that most
people scratch their heads in amazement at is the utter intensity of it all.
It sound like the band is fighting its own audience off. Armed with only a
salty microphone, drums, and guitars. This cd should establish Napalm Death
as noise artists ala Aube or Merzbow. Forget grindcore. Poo on
death-metal. Just cuz they apparently have an aversion to salon visits
doesn’t mean anything about their music.
While reviewing Words From the Exit Wound (their previous album), I
likened Napalm Death to an ‘angry Sonic Youth’, but they go beyond what
Sonic Youth do now. One band has chosen to mellow with age, while another
has fragmented their sound into an incomprehensible maze of starts and stops
and arrangements that have little to do with ‘proper indie-rock songs’.
Because Napalm have chosen to apparently abstain from fashion, they get less
groupies, and thus have more bile/song fodder. It works! When EMF were a
flavor of the minute, Napalm released Utopia Banished (1992). Now it’s the
age of the boy band, and ND are arguably at their most vital.
Another thing: have Napalm Death been listening a lot to The Cardiacs before
they wrote these songs? No major odd time (which The Cadiacs always throw in
at unusual periods) work that glares out, but these songs have a bit of
‘math rock’ in them, for sure. The drumming isn’t so much in Dixie Dregs or
Yes time signatures, but the way Danny Herrera will come out of a verse with
a strangely-timed fill will keep your finger on the RWD button. *What? I’m
also starting to be able to tell the two guitarists songs apart (maybe I
have been listening to Napalm more than is healthy). Jesse Pintado seems to
favor the more dissonant riffs (like the amazing Fracture in the
Equation—the best ending ever to a Napalm Death cd), while Mitch Harris
favors guitar-bits that are…well, more round sounding (that doesn’t make
any sense to you, huh?).
Living in California like I do, I may have had a few months to wait for a
copy of this. My brilliant friend in London just shipped this to me,
thankfully. Because I’m so enamored already of this band, I anxiously
already pored over the two reviews I saw yesterday in British rock journals.
They both called this a “return to form", and I have to agree. I’ve been
listening to Napalm Death avidly since 1989, and I just couldn’t get my head
around this record. Just like I used to feel. In short, this is IMMENSELY
RECCOMMENDED!
Jason Thornberry CanEHdian.com, 2000
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