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Rating: Regenerating, liberating, (sub)human, musical purification: this could be a way to attempt to summarily depict the current solid and unwavering Napalm Death, ruthless, wall of sound.
The now somewhat aged Grindcorers par excellence, Napalm Death, 2005 variant (now a quartet, after the recent departure of Floridian Jesse Pintado), effectively deface the staff, with the same unchanging enthusiasm, the same authentic, devastating, feral freshness of their beginnings: an exhausting, dense work, with a "specific weight" at times, if unaccustomed, enervating. Intensity seems to be the underlying watchword of the sixteen ferocious, corrosive acoustic shards contained in the urgent "Code Red": a vigor, mind you, not burdened by the exclusive hyper-kinetic cardiopulmonary/earbanging (distant are the days of "From Enslavement..."), well known to long-time Napalm-aficionados (...and dislikers).
Blithely disregarding the multiple scathing critiques reserved for Them since their early, ultra-guttural and caustic vinyl cries (the A-side of "Scum" dates back to the archaic 1986), the theorists of "obliteration from enslavement", having bypassed some previous vinyl (and digital) legacies from the mid-nineties, not exactly marked by the same expressive urgency of their derided beginnings, for about three works now, have managed to materialize an unexpected yet remarkable process of revitalization/polishing of the known formula, unleashing today an ultra-hardcore platter (if not in the strict expressive formula, in its magmatic substance), square, impetuous and merciless, albeit ferociously flowing. "Silence is Deafening" a true intentional paradigm (more than concretely confirmed, to clear any doubts..), as well as an opening track, suggests not even figuratively what will be developed (also at a textual level) within the last legacy of the Birmingham/Floridans; mountain-splitting riffs, brutal/corrupted vocals, sometimes paroxysmal speeds although "humanly bearable," up to the central "chorus": an exhausting napalm-mosh/part of clear underlying proto-affiliation Sabbath/Celtic Frost-ian, monstrously "heavy" and shivering (nothing new under the sun ?: one should allow a "listen," just to feel the effect-it-makes...): for years, within the Napalm Death-machine (such is the efficiency that it would seem the whole is not performed by normal humanoids), such fierce, salvific, released energy has not been heard.
Mitch Harris (contrary to what might be suspected), does not seem at all affected by the current single-handedness of the hefty/incisive riffing: paradoxically the thick, fierce, guitar layer seems to have gained in stridency and freshness.
Among such a collection of sweet sounds, we note the pleasant opportunity to be able to listen to the personal tribute/legacy of the "historic" screening/ante, Dead Kennedyan disorienting throat, Jello Biafra (emblem of North American independent music... and beyond), who returns, with fruitful interest, the napalm-courtesy granted many years ago (in the "Virus 100" compilation in which "ours" stunned the well-known "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" of Kennedyan-memory) ennobling in his own way, the scathing "The Great And The Good".
"Diplomatic Immunity" in not even two miserable minutes of exasperating intensity, "Strading Purposefully Backwards," the long title track or again the accidented "All Hail The Grey Dawn" apparently abolish with ease and without particular dilemmas, a substantial part of the pseudo-musical/aggressive "fluff" coined by entire legions of new, "muscular," (all too often) inconclusive hc/metal-noisers of the last hour.
The Code Is Red… Long Live The Napalm.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Silence Is Deafening (03:48)
Rant long and loud
Repeat 'til you're blue in the face
Ever get the feeling you're always on a losing streak?
Their silence is deafening
From the havens of thieves and kings
Empower those who serve to deflect suspicious minds
Action and answers as likely as a reversal of time
Their silence is deafening
From the retreats of tamed apologists
Their disdain is crippling
For those whose crises they have fixed
I am your untermensch -a trace of filth to be scraped off
A trace of filth to be scraped off
Yet when it's you who's in their debt
The strong-arm brings you to your knees
So much for progressive authority
A trace of filth to be scraped off
Power for the powerless - well, where?
Screaming at the wall to make more sense...
... I melt back into indifference
The silence is deafening
The silence is deafening
The silence is deafening
03 Diplomatic Immunity (01:45)
[Embury, Greenway]
... And so it comes to pass
With a shrug of the shoulders
A washing of the hands
It was war through lies on demand
Work to live to fund their egos
With bombs and shaky claims
Make the cowboy killer's day
Take one life and your's will cease
He'll take thousands (in the) name of "peace"
Selective memory and distorted words
The methods of the untouchable
Struts away and dusts off his gun
To cast more net on his "axis of evil"
Make the cowboy killer's cay
Prays on all your lethargy
Knows you'll turn the other cheek
05 Climate Controllers (03:06)
Excuses, excuses
Fabrications, smokescreens
Manacles - no recourse
Fabrications, smokescreens
Lower than the lowest
Lower than the lowest
Lower than the lowest
Maybe, just maybe, this New World Order
Is no concept for "freaks"
Straight, true, and divine
Straight, true, and divine
Straight, true, and divine
Maybe, just maybe, plans to rein us in
Have broken to the surface
Full fronal assault on your choice
(Your) choice to spurn the flag
Waves retribution awating those who dissent
Patriot - yes, it's an act
Fabrications, smokescreens
Speak when spoken to
Speak when spoken to
Speak when spoken to
Maybe, just maybe, you're an obstruction
Blocking their assets
06 Instruments of Persuasion (02:59)
[Mitch Harris/Greenway]
A farce - so sincere
A farce - so austere
A farce - hartfelt pleas
A farce - shock and awe to force a retreat
Ten thousand corpses in the wake of his whims
Count many thousands more on the way to obedience
Duty - to uphold
Duty - to make bold
Duty - purity so skewed
Duty - break out the arms, don't spare the rod.
Ten thousand corpses in the wake of his whims
Waves and flashes smiles, with the gall of an unmarked man
Instruments of persuasion
Instruments of persuasion
Instruments of persuasion
Rallying calls to the wilfully blinkered
Hands on the heart and heads in the sand
Instruments of persuasion
Instruments of persuasion
Stand shoulder-to-shoulder and win the bonanza.
A sweetener from death to get back in the good books
Instruments of persuasion
Instruments of persuasion
07 The Great and the Good (04:10)
Stinking to the bowels of high heaven
Creeping to the giants of status
Guarding protection of interests - not you
Not you or anything that might be misconstrued (as help)
Marching through the ashes of conquests
Slapping the backs of the empire men
Selling our consent in the process - that's you
That is you and everything you'd be reduced to do
A pledge is a pledge
But only 'til it doesn't suit your friends
The art of double-talk
Adamant on what you really meant
A pledge is a pledge is a pledge is a pledge
For lesser, the poorer
Pluck out their eyes - they offend
"Dumb" animals can't precede the lucre in barbaric tests
Big noise says jump now
The chasm is never too high or wide
The corporate slow-killer
Punished with a lenient smile
A pledge is a pledge is a pledge is a pledge
The arrogance, the hand in hands of despotic freaks that defend
An oversight where human rights fall at the fence of "good trade"
Yes man? Always.
Drop the high and mighty facade
Do the dect thing
Consider mouthing one word of truth
Blow open the grand scheme
Yes man? Always. Yes man? Always. Yes man? Always
Drop the high and mighty facade
Do - the decent thing
Consider mouthing one word of truth
Blow open the grand scheme
A pledge is a pledge is a pledge is a pledge
The man in the bubble smiles - berates the condemned
Back to his crusade, fights off more cries of dissent.
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