Napalm Death

What are the Top 100 metal tours of all time? Find out in Decibel‘s new limited edition special issue of 100% previously-unprinted content. 

Lock Up has a new vocalist but haven’t slowed down with “Desolation Architect.” 

If you know anything about Napalm Death you probably know this bit of trivia: the band contains no original members. While they are known for the revolutionary Scum album, not even their oldest current member played on it. So when it comes to people leaving, dying or being fired, when is a band no longer the same band?  

Napalm Death frontman Barney Greenway talks about his hopes for peace and dignity in the world in  FreqsTV’s latest episode of Anchors to Asphalt.

Even Napalm Death had growing pains. Our latest Justify Your Shitty Taste defends that era of the legendary grindcore band.

For our first instalment of That Tour Was Awesome, we speak with members of Bolt Thrower, Carcass, Morbid Angel, and Napalm Death about the legendary Grindcrusher UK 1989 jaunt.

Did you catch Napalm Death in the past couple of months when they rolled through your town? If not, you missed one of the most eclectic tour packages of 2016. We caught up with vocalist Mark “Barney” Greenway ahead of the band’s first of two sold-out shows at Slim’s in San Francisco to talk about how the “Savage Imperial Death March Tour” came about, the logistics of grindin’ for six straight weeks and, of course, the three-ring circus that is American politics.

Napalm Death, the Melvins and Melt Banana will begin their triumphant month-plus trek across the States (and a couple Canadian cities) this Saturday, March 26th in Phoenix, AZ.  When ND’s Shane Embury twisted our ear about a possible oddball interview between himself and the Melvins’ own King Buzzo, there was no question.

Kick Me Silly – VC III
Bigger Bang
dB Rating: 8/10

Sure, the more populous mid-Atlantic cities are a safer bet for metal acts looking to earn a decent night’s pay, but Frederick, MD has been starved long enough for our underground metal love to get passionate and sloppy.  Look at what happens when Napalm Death and friends drop by.

This particular iteration of Napalm Death was notably short-lived, but the sheer amount the quartet was able to accomplish in a two-year run between the summer of ’87 and summer of ’89 is absolutely mental.

One of the reasons Napalm Death has been so successful is their relationship with producer Russ Russell. Russell has worked with the band since 2000 and will probably be with them when they are making albums in their 70s. He joined us from England for a chat on working with the grind legends. 

Damn, this new Call of the Void joint has some cool textures on it. Featuring a sort of His Hero Is Gone by way of latter day Napalm Death sound, Ageless goes a lot of interesting places, both sonically and compositionally. The record is out next week via Relapse, but we’ve got the full-stream for…

Folks, that’s an animated Barney Greenway. Consider us chuffed. Napalm Death was recently featured on our cover in conjunction with the release of their massive new album Apex Predator-Easy Meat. In our story last month Greenway told us: “I know it sounds sickeningly upbeat but I’ve never gone into a show and been in the…

February’s Napalm Death cover story opens with three full paragraphs pertaining to Barney Greenway’s undergarments. No, we haven’t gone full Maxim (although we know you’re still eagerly anticipating the sequel to the Hottest Doodz in Metal). Napalm, after all, are a band who’s most recent album was called Utilitarian, and writer Justin Norton is merely…

Napalm Death. Three decades of grindcore! The Birmingham-based bashers are no stranger to Decibel, having graced a covers, tours, and being uniquely positioned in the heart of hearts and mind of minds in our senior leadership. It’s with absolute delight that we’re able to premiere “Cesspits” off new album, Apex Predator – Easy Meat. “Sometimes…

English grind trio Human Cull don’t look to reinvent the wheel each and every time they step into the practice space. They are way more interested in trying to split the atom with bass, drums and throat. Originally formed under the name Gran Toucher, they soon got serious in 2011, became Human Cull, and focused…

How did Napalm Death get its first Peel Session? Shane Embury: “I joined Napalm in July ’87, so the first thing I ever did with Napalm Death was a Peel Session—even before we had played live or anything, strangely enough. At that time, the BBC would have contacted Earache and this guy Martin Nesbitt was…

There are a lot of hooks on Surgical Steel, but that has always been the case with Carcass; no matter how brutal it gets, it’s always hummable. Has that been deliberate?“Well yeah, I’m glad you think that. Yes some of the music is difficult to the untrained listener but we do wanna have hooks; they…

Three guys in pig masks? While we’d like to think that Purify the Horror were channelling the heist scene from BMX Bandits when they were working on their aesthetic, but it’s probably the whole anonymity thing that they were going for. Apart from the mortal threats issued during said bank job, the “Australian Goonies” doesn’t…

Houston may well be home to one of the worst teams in Major League Baseball history this year, so we threw them a bone in the form of the first gig of the 2013 Decibel Magazine Tour. You know the score: Cannibal Corpse, Napalm Death and Immolation bring the death and grind thunder, Cretin, Magrudergrind…

Human Cull are a gnarly grindcore trio from the United Kingdom who deal largely in 30-second riff-salvos. Guitarist and vocalist Edd Robinson admits as much that the band’s entire canon will be fast and crusty, but dammit he’s a humanitarian, it’ll be memorable too. Brevity in grindcore song structures was hardwired at the genre’s birth…

In what should be received as manna from heaven to all those waiting for new Godflesh material, Justin K. Broadrick has released another promo edit from the forthcoming JK Flesh LP, Posthuman. Released through UK label 3by3 on 30 April, Posthuman sees Broadrick resurrect his Techno Animal nom de guerre for another harsh excursion into…

To celebrate Tuesday’s release of Utilitarian (the fourteenth (!) Napalm Death full-length), we asked longtime bassist Shane Embury to a pick a non-ND record that related in some way to each of the fourteen full-length ND records (including a covers album) that he’s played on over the last 24+ years. Last week, Shane’s entries took…

Before getting round to talking about the imminent reissue of Napalm Death’s now 25-year-old [iconic/seminal/etc.] debut Scum, the Deciblog is engaging Mick Harris in a discussion about his favorite fish—the barbel. You see, Napalm Death’s drummer from the years between ’85 and ’91 has long since put his sticks down, and—in his words—has dropped out…

In the preface to his interview with Napalm Death frontman Barney Greenway in Issue #89, J. Bennett wrote that “[t]here are few bands you can rely upon to deliver the fucking goods on their 14th album. Or to even make it that far in the first place. The number of grind outfits that have accomplished…

There are game changers and then there are game changers. I wouldn’t say Hard ‘N Heavy’s Grindcore Special Issue was a game changer in the same way Entombed, Paradise Lost, Napalm Deafth (phonetic spelling, natch), Bolt Thrower, Tiamat, and many others were in the dimmest part of the early ’90s, but it, unlike any Xeroxed…

Earache records is officially 25 years young this year. While it was the vinyl-only release of The Accüsed’s The Return of Martha Splatterhead that marked the label’s debut, it was the release of Napalm Death’s inconic/incendiary/etc debut, ‘87’s Scum, that started an uncanny hot-streak for the label, one which saw them go on to bogart…

Just around the corner from the Camden Underworld, the BrewDog bar is exhibiting all the signs that tonight’s show is going to be over-subscribed despite Napalm Death’s much-anticipated and completed new album, Utilitarian, in cold storage until the New Year. The Scottish independent brewery’s own titular tribute to the Dead Kennedys’ anti-fascist anthem, the 7.8%…

We know who coined the term ‘blast beat’ or ‘blastbeat’, but which group was the first to employ the technique now synonymous with extreme metal drumming? Now that is a question I bet even a TakeLessons drum teacher wouldn’t be able to answer. Was it grindcore legends Napalm Death? Was it crossover heroes D.R.I.? Or…