Fewer than a handful of musical artists can rightfully lay claim to having invented anything over the course of their careers. However, an entire solar system of artists can trace their musical DNA back to the signature sound of Napalm Death.
Napalm Death is a paradox. In the mid-1980s, this English group gained notoriety as the fastest band in the world, with convulsive, machine-gun tempos, viscous, reverberating guitars, grotesquely distorted bass, and caustic, eviscerating and largely indecipherable vocals. The manic violence of Napalm Death’s previous album, Apex Predator – Easy Meat bears a resemblance to an artillery barrage from World War I. Stacked behind Apex Predator, like a series of landmines, is a mile-long string of releases, dating back to their 1987 debut, Scum. Each subsequent recording is an exercise in physical endurance and envelope-pushing extremity.
What can be more extreme than to defy expectations by transforming the seismic rumble of Napalm Death’s signature cannonade into an almost-traditional three-minute song? The latest single from their soon-to-be-released album, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, is, at first glance, just that. The lyrics of “Amoral” describe a personality type we’ve grown accustomed to over the past three and a half years—the kind of person who lives beyond ethics and norms—and rules:
When our emotions summon ghosts
They scratch the wound and feed the host
The past, the lies are all revealed
The layers of guilt can never heal
Trauma seeks a vengeful heart
To pluck the truth out from the dark
We all take turns to hide deceit
But what we sow is what we reap
There’s no prediction to apportion hope
Disconnected amoral limbo
Deceiving to achieve
What is there really to achieve?
There’s no conviction that can bestow
Disconnected amoral limbo
In the end we’re just food for the worms
Shit of the earth
Assassins within our closest kin
Conceived control hid in the wings
Silent, we gave away our faith
A future unknown, a hindered race
Punished for trust the mindless won
Banished, no thought of the outcome
Diseased, you poisoned all with fear
Against ourselves the choice was clear
There’s no prediction to apportion hope
Disconnected amoral limbo
Deceiving to achieve
What is there really to achieve?
There’s no conviction that can bestow
Disconnected amoral limbo
In the end we’re just food for the worms
Shit of the earth
Though Napalm Death has long claimed an apolitical lyrical approach—one that speaks to their association with the early anarcho-punk outfit, Crass—they have also channeled the cynicism and anti-fascist beliefs of bands like the Dead Kennedys and the detuned fatalism of Discharge. Lyrically, “Amoral” aligns more with Discharge than Crass, while the music calls to mind the discordant melodies of My Bloody Valentine and the Young Gods.
After pushing and testing modern music boundaries for more than thirty years, Napalm Death goes further by continually refining their sound, refusing to get stuck, pressing forward, growing, and evolving.
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism will be released on September 18, 2020.