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| MARK 'BARNEY' GREENWAY - Vocals
SHANE EMBURY - Bass
JESSE PINTADO - Guitar
MITCH HARRIS - Guitar
DANNY HERRERA - Drums
Meet Napalm Death - in your face, down your trousers and up your arse like a shit eating rabbit on speed.
What do Napalm Death sound like, exactly |
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| Punishment in Capitals
by Napalm Death
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Label: Snapper UK
2004-01-27
Media: Audio CD
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Tracklisting:
1. Lucid Fairytale
2. Take the Poison
3. Next on the List
4. Constitutional Hell
5. Suffer the Children
6. Cleanse Impure
7. Politicians
8. Breed to Breathe
9. Vermin
10. World Keeps Turning
11. Can't Play Won't Pay
12. Unchallenged Hate
13. Volume of Neglect
14. Narcoleptic
15. Hung
16. From Enslavement to Obliteration
17. Scum
18. Life
19. Kill
20. Deceiver
21. You Suffer
22. Cure for a Common Complaint
23. Mass Appeal Madness
24. Greed Killing
25. Instinct of Survival
26. Nazi Punks Fuck Off
27. Back from the Dead
28. Siege of Power
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MARK 'BARNEY' GREENWAY - Vocals
SHANE EMBURY - Bass
JESSE PINTADO - Guitar
MITCH HARRIS - Guitar
DANNY HERRERA - Drums
Meet Napalm Death - in your face, down your trousers and up your arse like a shit eating rabbit on speed.
What do Napalm Death sound like, exactly? Well, imagine 2 binliners full of rabid, three-headed mutant rottweiler puppies stuffed in a metal dustbin and kicked down the stairs of a multi-storey tenement block during a riot. Whilst overhead, souped up B52 bombers, flown by screaming demons are dropping grand pianos full of roaring crack babies into a dynamite-packed quarry of one-armed born-again Christian steel-drummers on drugs. They sound exactly like that, only madder.
Do you get it? Do the down-tuned guitars, ultra fast blast-beats and gruff Mutley-with-throat cancer vocals make any fucking sense whatsofuckingever!? As a recent letter to the Guardian newspaper pointed out - without the correct critical tools, Napalm Death and Wagner both sound shit. Have you got the ears?
If you approach Napalm Death expecting the leopard-skin print poodlefakery of LA's cod-metal wank bands then you'll be savagely disappointed. If you come to Napalm Death seeking the dry wit and twee whimsy of Belle and Sebastian then you'll run home screaming with your bloody and shattered brains spurting out of your ruptured eardrums. And serve you jolly well right.
Fans of Napalm Death include: The Stereophonics, Nigel Kennedy, Radio 1 DJ's John Peel and Steve Lamaq, comedians Sean Hughes and Vic Reeves and TV presenter Chris Evans.
Are you frightened yet?
You want EXTREME!? Well do you? Huh? Do you think you can handle it? I said - DO YOU THINK YOU CAN HANDLE IT!?!? Napalm Death invented extreme - FACT!
You want someone to blame for grind-core, techno, thrash metal, gabba, speed garage or the extreme edges of modern avant-garde bleeding jazz? Blame Napalm Death they invented the lot. The bastards.
That's a FACT. Yes it is. Without Napalm, Nirvana would have remained an obscure lickle indie-schmidie punk rock band. You'd have no Fear Factory, Machine Head or Cradle Of Filth and the lovey-dovey Ravey-Davey dance would have remained untainted by the screaming 900mph politico-punk of Berlin's totally mental Digital Hardcore bands. Napalm Death are to blame. Curse them!
Without Napalm Death music would be nicer, much nicer. Lots more sensitive singer-songwriters gently strumming twee and utterly depressing odes to the joys of melancholy. How lovely. And lots more ambient elevator muzak with extra added whale song samples to lull you to sleep after a busy day sniffing flowers and stroking cute liddle pussy cats. How sweet. In fact, if you could go back in a time machine to 1981 and assassinate Napalm Death, then you'd come back to a world where everyone sounded like Enya and The Corrs. Except even sweeter and nicer. Brilliant!.
REWIND - screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee - ENGLAND EARLY 1980s
The newly formed Napalm Death release their first LP 'Scum'. The effect is devastating. The speed, brutality and brevity shock and appal those jaded music critics who think they've heard everything. The politics are pure Crass. The attitude is total Motorhead. But the noise - the noise is all but indescribable. Ears prick up all over. Napalm are the first band to emerge from the massive, world-wide fanzines 'n' tapes underground of extreme grind-core and into the mainstream.
The effect they will have on dozens of other musical genres will be incalculable. Fifteen years later Napalm Death will have undergone so many line up changes that none of the original members will still be in the band. And popular music will have been changed out of all recognition.
FAST FORWARD - screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee - MOSCOW 1991
The Berlin Wall's been smashed to rubble. Russia embraces pornography, McDonalds and organised crime with gusto. Poverty, disillusionment and chaos follow in capitalism's wake and all over the former Warsaw Pact, kids start seeking out music as bitter, confused and as totally fucked-off as they feel. They find it in Napalm Death.
Napalm Death are backstage at a massive sell-out Moscow show. Out front thousands of pissed off kids in bootleg Napalm Death T-shirts are fighting running battles with baton - wielding militia. A kid walks up to Napalm bassist Shane clutching a tape labelled Hitler. You called your band Hitler? snarls Shane. Yes we like Hitler because he was against Communism.. babbles the kid. Shane takes the tape, stamps on it, pulls it apart, sticks it down the toilet and flushes. The nazi twat freaks, screams abuse, runs from the room, down a corridor, leaps down a stairwell and SPLAT! - falls to his death. Shame.
Years later Napalm Death run into the band who organised that Moscow gig. They've joined and become spokesmen for a far-right, anti-Semitic Russian nationalist party. Napalm say - Hi! And then kick the living crap out of them. Napalm's cover of the Dead Kennedy's song 'Nazi Punks Fuck Off' has sold tens of thousands of copies to date. The band's Unrelenting anti-fascist stance has also resulted in several of their American gigs being attacked by sub-human nazi scum. We're NOT talking about Bis here....
REWIND - screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ENGLAND 1989
I joined this band to fuck people off says new bassist Shane Embury Napalm release the mind- shattering 'From Enslavement To Obliteration' Uh, 54 tracks on one album!!? gasp the critics And some of these so-called 'songs'
are only a few seconds long! Are you mad!?. Are you like TOTALLY FUCKING INSANE!?!?
The answer quite clearly is - yes. Musically speaking Napalm Death are madder than a box of tap-dancing frogs munching jam and crackers while barking out their 47 times-table backwards in Swahili i.e. very mad. OFFICIAL!.
Some embrace 'Enslavement' as the ultimate, illogical conclusion of Heavy Metal. Others see it as blasphemy.
The world at large is utterly confused. Are Napalm Death ultra-intellectual avant-garde art-terrorists? Is it all some weird, sick, anti-musical joke? Napalm themselves are bemused by all the attention. They know what they are. They know where they've come from - from the tape-swapping, fanzine scribbling, pre-internet global web of DIY, anti-music biz underground metal scene. But now everyone wants a piece of them. Accusations of sell-out inevitably result. A group of ultra-extreme anarchovegan grind-core munchkins in Bradford, England declare a punk-fatwah against Napalm.
Boy, is this fun or what!?
MEANWHILE IN NEW YORK...
Respected avant-garde musician John Zorn is working hard on the music for a tribute concert to jazz legend John Coltrane. Then he hears Napalm Death - and bins everything. This, he realises, is the real cutting edge, the genuine avant-garde, music that is as out there and revolutionary as modern jazz WAS in the 1940's and 50's. He trains his musicians to ape (as best they can) the blistering, cranium-smashing controlled chaos of the Napalm Death sound. When the John Coltrane tribute concert is finally staged the audience reaction is mixed. Some of the stuffed-shirt jazz bores scream FUCKING WHAT!? and run from the theatre with their hands over their ears. Others scream even less articulate abuse and hurl chairs at the stage. They can't handle it, the wankers.
Napalm Death have this effect on some people.
Mr Zorn then teams up with Napalm's Mick Harris to form the legendary grind -core/jazz combo PAINKILLER. They make two astounding albums - 'Guts Of A Virgin' and 'Buried Secrets'. Acker Bilk spins in his grave.
FAST FORWARD - screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee SOUTH AFRICA 1993
With backing from the ANC vocalist Barney goes over first, teaching children’s workshops. When the rest of the band join him, they're attacked by white supremacist wearing brown shirts and swastika armbands.
HANG ON - THIS IS GETTING CONFUSING!
What's the problem?
WELL - ISN'T THIS MEANT TO BE, LIKE, A BAND BIOGRAPHY? WHERE ARE ALL THE REALLY INTERESTING NAMES, DATES AND PLACES?
Ok trainspotter, take a deep breath......
By the time Napalm release 'Scum' (1987) the band have already undergone many line up changes and the team sheet reads:
MICK HARRIS (drums)
JUSTIN BROADWICK (guitar)
NICK BULLEN (bass / vocals )
But by the time side 2 of 'Scum' is being recorded, Mr Broadwick buggers of to join Head Of David (and, later Godflesh) and is replaced by BILL STEER. Mr Bullen is replaced by JIM WHITELY and LEE DORRIAN takes over on vocals.
UH, HANG ON! THAT'S LIKE A TOTALLY NEW BAND! THAT'S INSANE!
Oh it gets madder. In 1987 Mr Whitely leaves and is replaced by bassist SHANE EMBURY. This line-up records two Peel sessions, contributes to several extreme noise compilations, releases the infamous Napalm/SOB split flexi, tours like bastards and, in August 1989, releases 'From Enslavement To Obliteration' and, a bit later, the 6-track 12" 'Mentally Murdered.
Then after touring Japan and making their legendary appearance on BBC 2's 'Arena- Heavy Metal Special', (in which Tom Araya of Slayer's claim that music just can't get any heavier or faster than Slayer is followed by a staggering burst of Napalm Death which makes Mr Araya look like a total twat). The band falls apart - AGAIN!
Mr Dorrian leaves (later joining Cathedral) and so does Mr Steer (ending up in Carcass). MARK 'BARNEY' GREENWAY (ex-Benediction) comes in on vocals and guitarist JESSE PINTADO joins from Terrorizer.
WOW! THAT'S AMAZING! IT'S AS IF ALL THE MEMBERS OF TAKE THAT WERE GRADUALLY REPLACED BY MEMBERS OF BOYZONE, E17 AND NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK!?
Uh, sort of. But be warned - the most boring question you can ask Napalm Death is - If you're so radical and out-there, why don't you do an album of Kylie Minogue covers? You would not believe the number of times they've heard that. If they hear it again they will kill and eat the journalist responsible. So be warned.
Anyway, where were we ?
YOU WERE GOING TO TELL US ALL ABOUT THE UK AND EUROPEAN GRINDCRUSHER TOUR ALONGSIDE BOLT THROWER, CARCASS AND MORBID ANGEL. AND THE FIRST AMERICAN SHOW IN NEW YORK AND...
That's right, guitarist MITCH HARRIS joins from Righteous Pigs and, amazingly, no one leaves. This line up records the 'Harmony Corruption' LP and the 'Suffer The Children' 12" and signalled the band's change in emphasis to the Death Metal style. Then they recorded four new tracks for the 'Mass Appeal Madness' EP which is so fucking heavy that the master tape has to be tethered to four massive hydrogen-filled weather balloons to stop it sinking down through the earth's crust and destroying all life on the planet.
CRIKEY!
Indeed! And then -guess what? Yes in 1992, after Napalm tour themselves into the ground, Mick Harris leaves to form the ambient dub outfit, Scorn - shock horror! Enter DANNY HERRERA, whose first live gig is in front of 3,000 fans in Germany.
An extensive US tour with Sepultura, Sacred Reich and Sick Of It All follows and then Napalm play two utterly deranged, 7,000 crazed maniac- punter shows in Moscow.
And then
* They released the 4th (and even more intense) album, 'Utopia Banished'.
* Toured Europe and the US as part of the 'Campaign For Musical Destruction'
* Played South Africa.
* Released the album 'Fear Emptiness Despair'
* And 'Diatribes' (we're up to 1996 now, try and keep up).
* Toured Europe, America, Australia and Japan and then.....
SOMEONE ELSE LEFT THE BAND, RIGHT?
How did you guess? In November 1996 Mark 'Barney' Greenway leaves to be replaced with Extreme Noise Terror's PHIL VANE.
AND?
In January 1997, during the recording of the 'Inside The Torn Apart' LP, Mr Vane leaves to be replaced by, er, MARK 'BARNEY' GREENWAY.
MY BRAIN HURTS
Yes, reading a Napalm Death biog is a little like sticking your head in the bass bin at a Napalm Death live show, isn't it? Talking of which, in 1998 the band also released a devastating live set on the LP 'Bootlegged in Japan' and a studio album charmingly entitled 'Words From The Exit Wound'.
IS THAT IT?
Are you kidding?. The Napalm Death covers EP 'Leaders Not Followers' (their first release for their new label Dream Catcher Records) - featured Napalm's own unique takes on a collection of devastatingly brutal and staggering eclectic tracks from the grind-core underground that spawned them was released to much excitement and critical acclaim at the end of 99. The new millennium saw the band record and release their best album yet Enemy Of The Music Business'. Since the album release in September the band have toured Europe, have just announced a full UK tour, have dates planned for Japan, Thailand and Australia and have received 44 offers from different festivals who want them to play in 2001.
Napalm Death are THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BAND IN EXSISTENCE. Fact!
They are at THE EXTREME CUTTING EDGE OF MUSIC. Fact!
AND THEY ARE STILL SO MOTHERANDFATHERFUCKING HEAVY THAT
THEY MAKE ALL OF THE ALLEGED COMPETITION SOUND LIKE TINY MICE
PLAYING BELLE AND SEBASTIAN TUNES ON MUTED TRIANGLES. Fact!
Source: http://www.dreamcatcher-records.co.uk |
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