- Many people have commented on the strange advent of a new Napalm Death record in the middle of the tragedy that is 2020. There was speculation on whether it would happen at all: thanks to vocalist Barney Greenway’s testy statements about when to expect it, bassist Shane Embury stepping back from his touring duties and the band as a whole taking four long years to put it together; that's the longest period they’ve spent on any of their sixteen full-lengths. Following that difficult gestation, here it is, laid to bed before the pandemic but released right in the middle of it. Commercial questions aside, aren’t Napalm Death supposed to be the harbinger, the accusing finger, the warning of the hell that is to come? Yet here they are like a wreath of fire on the brow of this annus horribilis. Maybe there is worse to come! Or maybe there is some truth in the title, some genuine joy in purifying anger at our predicament. As we sink further into the apocalypse, Napalm Death rises like an avenging angel, unleashing an unholy music to block out an even more ungodly reality and burying a burning sword in the flesh of the lords and masters who landed us here.
Uncertainties be damned, Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism sounds like it should: the work of one of the most consistent bands in heavy music. After the initial ructions that threatened their existence back in the late-’80s, -the sort of commercial, musical and personal stuff that tears nearly all bands to pieces- the mid-to-late career stability of Napalm Death has lasted significantly longer than the whole life of other bands. Even their return to roots and the reclamation of the short, sharp, brutal power of grindcore happened twenty years ago! Contemporarily they sound like a well-oiled machine: the sub-three minute, blast-beat-powered opuses fly out like the band have nothing to prove. Well, nearly nothing, the title of the first song here is Fuck The Factoid, which may display just a little frustration at what other people have to say about them.
If this sort of thing is your jam, it’s pretty easy to enjoy. It’s not Napalm-Death-by-numbers, but I had worried I might not have enough to say about this record, beyond sticking two enthusiastic thumbs up as the sound buried me in the back wall. There is more than that though and I wonder if Barney was just trying to get the grindcore-purists in a froth when he advised fans to look out for “obvious stuff like Coil, Swans and Einstürzende Neubauten.” If anybody is that petty, this late in the game, they will find their bones of contention jutting up out of the musical landscape. Take the post-punk and multi-tracked vocals of Amoral which owe a big debt to a band Napalm Death have long been fans of, Killing Joke. They also try their hand at doom on the slowly thunderous and at times blatantly strutting Invigorating Clutch. Then there’s the closer A Bellyful Of Salt And Spleen, a title which could sum up Napalm Death’s career, except the sound is the straight-up, inexorable, crushing post-punk of Swans.
Napalm Death have survived so much in their time, faced down every obstacle and come back still holding the torch for social justice and heavy music. Why should anything happening right now faze them? I don’t doubt they’ll find some (ethical) way to tour, sometime in the near future. Join them in rage, join them in strength.
- Chris Cobcroft.