Napalm Death
Apex Predator - Easy Meat

It's not easy, I know it might be a paradox, but writing a review about a band like Napalm Death isn't a Herculean task, yet it has its share of difficulty. Simply because these gentlemen have, since 1987 and that seminal "Scum", been an unstoppable infernal machine. With an eye fixed on the horizon of a career that's almost hitting the three-decade mark, the guys from Meriden have never produced work that could be called bad, a misstep, dull, insert your preferred insult. Maybe something subpar, sure, that much you might expect along the backbone of a discography with few compromises, but to deliver in 2015 a work like "Apex Predator - Easy Meat" that brings Shane, Mark, Mitch, and Danny back with the typical grace of a molotov cocktail thrown onto a live fuse in enviable health only deserves due appreciation. Let's be clear right off, so we don't have to come back to it later: there's no "innovation." The path our guys have been on for quite some time, of which "Utilitarian" was the latest expression, continues steadfastly, refined, if you will. So the explosive core where foundations are upheld by hardcore punk, grind, and more classic death receives inflections of noise, quirky chants, and... well, I'm tired: disorienting sonic annihilation. There you go, three words worth more than a thousand classifications.

The genesis of "Apex Predator - Easy Meat" is to be found in Bangladesh, in Dhaka. Yes, indeed. If there's one thing Napalm Death have always championed beyond the strictly musical aspect, it's a certain interest in contemporary society. Lyrics soaked in protest, rather than denunciation or growl tearing references to modern civilization. In short, far from that gore-grind imagery, they've always, in their way, been a watershed in representing certain dimensions with sociological traits in Barney's martial screams. Sure, you won’t find a dissertation by Erving Goffman there, or maybe you will, I don't know, after fifteen albums I think you might forgive me if my memory fails, but the Napalm Death attitude is there. Undeniable. Let's return specifically to Bangladesh and to April 2013 when the Rana Plaza collapsed. Structural failure, boom. Everything falls. A complex made of apartments, shops, textile factory. Well, the workers of the latter, despite warnings of cracks in the building, were forced to return to work in the following days. And on April 24, 8 in the morning, all hell breaks loose. In the end, there were 1129 dead. More than 2500 injured. A colossal tragedy. Had you heard about it? If yes, good for you. What Shane Embury and Mark Greenway thought, however, was to look at the role of the mass media and how they treated it as a throwaway story, with little clarity, treating the victims as mere statistics. From there, they say, came the inspiration for "Apex Predator - Easy Meat". On how there still exists a hidden world, made of slavery and imprisonments that go well beyond mere physical coercion. The focus of inspiration stretches towards the poorest areas of the planet, in a relentless dichotomy between social classes. Where neglect of the human being as such, without granting any dignity, is still a widespread custom. Slaves in a larger chain, where at the top, well, there is indeed the Apex Predator, the non plus ultra of predators. All this to tell you: concentrate these themes with the unbridled and atrocious rage of Napalm Death, and you have the perfect summary of this full-length.

Behind the mass of flesh to be shredded lies a mechanism made of a rhythmic section so solid, it's no surprise at all. It has been the English's winning card for centuries and is confirmed here too. Hallucinated assaults where breathing is labored, made difficult by the cohesive impenetrability of the ferocious attack of blast beats and riffs that create scenarios where the tension can be cut with extreme ease. Our guys always push further, knocking down a wall of despair that leaves one baffled on their knees. A timeless, continuous, cyclical suffering that resurfaces with just the right inspiration, cutting, and in which episodes like Hierarchies revisit the "modern" interpretation key of Napalm Death. It's a thundering return, capable of creating once again that morbid and emotionless environment that characterizes that wild grind soul hurled out with blind and killer fury. Is it a work that adds nothing to their discography? Maybe, but the freshness with which they replenish the grooves carved by Napalm Death themselves three decades ago is only to be praised and in this "Apex Predator - Easy Meat" hits the target. Once again.