Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Napalm Death - "Procrastination on the Empty Vessel"

Ooookay...
The year was 1987. Napalm Death released their first album "Scum" - one of the first grindcore albums.
A total blitz of uzi-speed, ultra brutal - though rather leftwing metal music. High speeds, short songs. Really short. Tracks "You Suffer" and "Dead" got the message through in about 1 second each. Point taken.
Was I listening to cool, timeless music like that? No.
In 1987 I got for my birthday "Future World" - the breakthrough album of danish poodlerockers Pretty Maids.
Lame, but it could have been worse. Like Madonna or something. I was into AC/DC as well, so I guess I was ok. Perhaps at the age of 10 I wasn't ready for Napalm Death anyway.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago. My interest in metal comes back strong, and this time I'm going for something a little more, err...convincing. I stumble over ND on their MySpace page, and let it simmer for a bit.
Two weeks ago, I grab their 2009 album Time Waits for No Slave
at a discount (yippee).
I like it. Here, see for yourself:



Ok, so Procrastination On The Empty Vessel
isn't a typical ND tune. It's rather slow and straightforward. But I like that hypnotic guitar-riff. Sound a bit like Killing Joke with bigger cojones, if you know what I mean.

For those of you who are not familiar with the band - yes, they are a bunch of old-ish geezers. Especially bassplayer Shane Embury and drummer Danny Herrera look like a pair of Dads-who-are-also-bouncers-at-underage-music-events-every-other-weekend...'s. But the point is, they are still going at it at breakneck speed.
Pretty Maids...are not.
So yes, I should have known better in 1987, but then I probably wouldn't have liked them as much now.

2 comments:

  1. A walk down memory lane!
    Napalm Death er et af de få engelske grindcorebands, som stadig er stilen tro. Det så ellers ud som om tiden løb fra dem omkring år 2000, hvor den amarikanske metalcore ramte Europa. Men som så meget andet, så går historien i cirkler og Napalm Death buldre der ud af igen. Der er dog kommet andre bands fra England, som formår at lege med både den traditionelle thrash/grindcore og en mere moderne lyd. Som eksempel kan nævnes Malefice. Et nyere band som løfte den engelske arv nogenlunde.

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  2. Jeps - jeg synes sgu de holder godt. Kender dog næsten kun deres første album, og så deres seneste, men det er også godt. Jeg bliver især mere og mere imponeret over deres tekster (som man jo ikke kan høre, men må læse for at værdsætte). Virkeligt overraskende poetisk samfundskritik.

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