Napalm Death
Death By Manipulation

THE REVIEW

The recurring review appointment with Napalm Death is renewed; today I will focus on a compilation released in August 1991. An album that brought some necessary order to their substantial and chaotic discography of the time, uniting historic EPs like "Mass Appeal Madness" and "Mentally Murdered," a split album (created with the diabolical Japanese S.O.B.), and the earth-shattering single "Suffer The Children." A total of nineteen songs dominated by raw and untainted Grindcore, the strong point of the British band.

It is the possessed, ogre-like voice of Mark "Barney" Greenway that guides the rough flow of the first tracks, with the malign apex reached in the sensational duo "Suffer The Children" and "Siege of Power." Two of their best and most famous songs; still performed live after many years. An atomic blend of unheard-of violence: macabre and furious dances that nail you to the listen. A primordial charge of cynical devastation.

It seems impossible, but they manage to go even further in terms of fury and malice from the eighth track onward: here reappear the ultra-growl voice of Lee Dorrian and the dismantled guitar of Bill Steer (figures of immeasurable importance regarding a certain type of heavy sound). From this moment until the end of the work, there is not a single moment of respite; twelve frenzied shards take shape. It begins with "Rise Above" and concludes this short journey, arriving in irreversible coma at the last track "Stalemate"; about twenty minutes that closely resemble their tremendous and seminal debut "Scum."

An evil record, which seems recorded inside a washing machine as much as it is "bastard" and dirty. Yet another example, one of the many in their endless musical career, of what it means sonically extreme...CAUSE AND EFFECT...

Ad Maiora.