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Rating: "Scum", as we know, is now history, a work that shines more for its conceptual significance than for its intrinsic content, a work that, for better or worse, marked a point of rupture and no return in the history of music as a whole. Because it's not just a milestone in grindcore, but something that assumes a broader significance, as a redefinition of the concept of Extreme and a reflection on the concept of Limit—so much so that it transcends the narrow confines of metal and exerts an influence on the entire musical landscape, reaching unsuspected terrains such as free-jazz and avant-garde music in general (the devastating Naked City by John Zorn or the Fantomas by Mike Patton are just the most striking examples).
However, if "Scum" has the advantage of playing on the surprise effect and, to be strict, appearing as a provocation for its own sake or a well-executed prank by brilliant high schoolers, "From Enslavement to Obliteration" is truly terrifying, because it's clear that Napalm Death is not kidding at all. With this album, the insights of its predecessor become actual standards, and grindcore rises as a genre, a feat not as predictable as it seems.
If a musical genre, in fact, builds its identity and raison d'être on the act of edging towards the Limit, it is obvious that stylistic maneuverability becomes almost impossible: moving forward isn't possible, as proceeding would contradict the laws of physics. Turning back, however, constitutes a renunciation of the core value (reaching the Limit), and thus immediate exit from the genre itself. Grind is, in fact, such a conceptually evolved and pure genre (it essentially represents a final point) that it does not allow for any evolution except contamination—a contamination that, as mentioned, inevitably propels it into other fields like industrial, noise, and even electronics (the path of the Scorn project by grind theorist Mick Harris is emblematic). Evidently, therefore, the only option, in light of this, is to remain where one stands, that is: on tiptoes at the line that denotes the Limit.
The only way, therefore, not to fall into mannerist temptations and at the same time remain faithful to the stringent dictates that the genre imposes is to understand that grindcore isn't simply a standard of brutality to comply with but rather a vehicle through which to express one's artistic urgency. And although stylistically very similar to its predecessor (perhaps, slightly more extreme), in "From Enslavement to Obliteration" it is the content that convinces us, and it is those we look at, because now we are savvy kids who are not easily impressed anymore. And "From Enslavement to Obliteration" is pleasing for what it is, an excellent extreme music record, a work that, according to me, shines with a light that makes it superior to all the rest of Napalm Death's discography, past and future—a maturity only intuited in "Scum", with an immediacy and anarchy that in the subsequent "Harmony Corruption" will be lost forever.
Mick Harris, Lee Dorrian, Bill Steer, Shane Embury, four names that, when seen one after the other, truly make an impression. Because there is only one way to go a thousand miles an hour and not seem repetitive: have the guts, call yourself Mick Harris, and throw yourself headlong into continuous and unpredictable tempo changes, deadly drum rolls, and gasping breaks. Then come the others, Lee Dorrian’s paranoid and strained voice—visionary and psychedelic icon of brutality; Steer’s rotting guitar that, between thrash and hardcore, already smells of that decay which will make his Carcass successful and soon explode; Embury’s dirty and dazed bass, who will become the reference point for future Napalm Death.
Four brilliant and different personalities (just look at where their paths will lead) who put their talent at the service of brutality, elevating grindcore to a vision and metaphor of contemporary society. Just listen to the opener "Evolved as One", a damned blues reminiscent of Swans introducing us to the terrible journey: the paranoid and slow drum beats, the muffled and dissonant bass, the rotting guitar, the voice that breaks the microphone: one of the most intense moments of extreme music, if you don’t believe it, listen to Lee Dorrian repeating "Your Weak Mind" endlessly, exploring the most varied and desperate vocal registers, as if in the grip of a schizophrenic rapture.
But it’s just the calling card, from the following "It's a M.A.N.S. World!" one dives headlong into a mad rush where there is really little space for meditation, just as happens with the daily frenzy and the bombardment of inputs to which we are subjected and that prevent us from metabolizing and understanding reality.
So, let yourself be stunned by these 27 frenzied shards (a way of conceiving and making music that finds its formal pinnacle in the two lightning seconds of "Dead") until the tragic end of "The Curse", a message replete with pessimism and absolute lack of hope for a better future.
Yet, despite its catastrophic meaning, how beautiful grindcore is: the primordial chaos, the mashed and raving growls suddenly turning into piercing screeches (as if rage overwhelms us to such extents that we can’t articulate words anymore, like a genuine regression to the primitive state), the fury of the drums that in its speed disintegrates and becomes something intangible (a clattering of cymbals, a metaphysical buzz that propels us at the speed of light yet takes us nowhere), the fragmentation and sense of instability of non-structures (which horrifies us and leaves us puzzled, as it prevents us from digesting the artist’s message, which is only sketched without completion). A state of affairs inherent in the very meaning of the moniker Napalm Death: a terrible end, extreme, caused by an unquenchable fire that not only burns you but continues to burn you despite water, despite the onset of Death. A total annihilation, not only of Life but also, and above all, of Matter.
Metal is therefore surpassed in destructuring and irrationality, much like a utility car being overtaken on the left by a derailing train racing down the asphalt, smashing the guardrail, and continuing its mad and self-destructive course off-road, mowing down every obstacle while simultaneously annihilating itself. Crazy and irrational music that metaphorically reflects the implosion of the contemporary world: chaos, alienation, stress, loneliness, dehumanization, the fragmentation of the Self, the incapacity to build an awareness of oneself and the external world, the ensuing anguish, anger, and despair. But more than that: insubordination to imposed behavioral models, control that makes us impotent, manipulation that renders us demented.
There’s little use in being holier-than-thou snobs, grind is us, our society, the values on which it stands, and the aberrant economic system that adopts them. You can try lining up cheeses and eating them with chestnut honey and venison shards all you want...
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
03 Lucid Fairytale (01:00)
Delude yourself with the notion
That life's viewed defiantly through your eye
Subconsciously following the flock
From which appearance is the only exemption
The stagnant illusion of change
Concealed behind your disguise
What's perspicious on the surface
Is artificial inside
When views are merely symbolic
Of an image you hide behind
The stagnant illusion of change
Concealed behind your disguise
05 Impressions (00:35)
A shroud of insecurity
Surrounds me every move
Actions reflect
Upon the response they receive
A sense of insecurity
Prevents my instincts being followed
Fear lies in my open-ness
Meeting rejection from the crowd
Why should I feel trapped?
Why should I hold back?
Why can't I...break free?
06 Unchallenged Hate (02:07)
A chronic complaint of dimness.
Prevails your profound ideology.
A romantic vision of a master race.
Attained through coercive forms of authority.
Your observance is negligence.
If you see the threat from difficult cultures.
We're all in this sinking ship.
Each of us together.
Where does the whiteman stand?
Where does the blackman stand?
Where do we all fucking stand/
Knee deep in the shit!
Lock into yourself and you'll find the real oppressor.
To a life of unchallenged hate.
It's yourself who's the "nigger"
07 Uncertainty Blurs the Vision (00:40)
A vision of life
Where together we walk
Unbound from an existence
Of fear and pain
The key to which
Is self-contained
External freedom
Must evolve from liberation within
To gain respect
And see the qualities in all life
Forms the spark
Which strikes the light
When so minimal the loss
How great be the risk
In reaching out and reclaiming our souls?
But until we overcome
The uncertainty in our fellow man
The vision of hope
Remains an illusion
"You reach out and touch it. You feel it.
It is the life and love that is alive in you.
The feeling that is beyond thought
A feeling of truth.
Reality in you,
When it is reached, you can reach it in others.
This is the liberation. This is the unity.
09 Retreat to Nowhere (00:30)
A clash of eyes, resets my mind
Perhaps this time
Retreat to nowhere
Retreat to nowhere
A social skill that I lack
Holds me back.
Retreat to nowhere
Retreat to nowhere
11 Display to Me... (02:44)
Domesticate me
Into your ideal creation
Fondle me
When in need of attention
Brutalise me
As a target for your aggression
Inject me
With your putrid diseases
Stretch my senses
Beyond the peak of insanity
Why practice methods of prevention
When I can pay for your hideous mistakes?
Blind me
With cosmetic filth
To form the mask that hides your guilt
Insecure, uncaring clowns
Your dolled-eyes don't see
The suffering I've prolonged
For your wretched vanity
Chew on my flesh
With perverted lust
Display to me
The depths of your compassion
As you excrete
My digested corpse
Into the shit-pan
My place of rest.
12 From Enslavement to Obliteration (01:36)
Commited to a life of slavery
In the factories our own hands have built
Where we must work twice the graft
Before gaining the goods we've already slogged to create
To consume all things material
Stands above human compassion
As we compete with our fellow man
In the bid for a stronger position
In our ruthless search for prosperity
We become the tools of our own oppression
Forming the backbone of a society
That thrives on mass division
From enslavement
To obliteration.
14 Social Sterility (01:03)
Time for my omittance, from a sterile existence.
Where the weekend pays homage to stereotypical perpetuation.
Must inebriate my senses into a state of delirium.
Before I turn to the meatrack from my penile selection.
Apathy spreads in unison with sexual disease.
A scourge that infests the cattle markets of youth.
Unconscious, just promiscuous.
Deprived of self respect.
In the selling of their bodies.
All emotions dead.
Thoughts absorbed.
Lost in sense of direction.
It's time to sit down.
And re - assess my course of action
15 Emotional Suffocation (01:06)
So this ordeal we're subjected to
Is all part of being (in) love?
Two minds of intense confusion
Contained in feelings of spite and mistrust
The closer one of us tries to get
The further the (other) seems to move
Tangled in trapped emotions
Can't face the prospect of rejection
Uncertainty arouses suspicion
Of your mind I want possession
I try to be honest with you
But are you being honest with me?
20 Mentally Murdered (02:13)
Your aspirations, unable to stretch,
Beyond the barriers of what's expected,
As the free thought you were born with
Becomes externally polluted.
Lose sight of your ideals
In their brainwashing institutions,
Predetermine your values
To befit your substandard existence...
Discouraging creativity,
To aim for empty ambitions.
Living up to others expectations.
Takes hold of your assiduity.
Mentally murdered!
Always up to the mark,
Set the wheels in motion,
A fake sense of security
From your invariable position.
Sinking in the crowd,
A face minus expression.
A mouth that echoes words,
Recycled from tradition.
Your only contentness
Is in living a lie.
Mentally murdered!
Do you possess the strength
To re-create your own life?
21 Sometimes (01:06)
Sometimes when inattentive
I become confused by my own actions
Slow to see in myself
The faults I'm quick to see in others
Barricaded with problems
I try to hide my face
By submitting my strength
To a mind-destroying substance
But why do I run
When it's myself I try to escape?
Why don't I possess the strength
To learn from my mistakes?
The only way to overcome your fears
Is to look them in the eye!
To be aware of ones faults
Is essential if they're to be corrected
When you lack the desire to change
The anguish becomes abundant
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