Napalm Death: The Grind Never Stops
Forever a band unbound by expectations and restrictions, no touring would never be enough to put out the flame inside NAPALM DEATH. As authentic to themselves as ever, the grindcore originals have served up another release marked with their quality seal of approval. Throwing it back to the days when a band would surprise their fans with another helping of new material, they have released a mini-album/EP titled Resentment Is Always Seismic – A Final Throw Of Woes. Featuring previously unheard tracks from their 2020 release Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism alongside two covers, it completes the records cycle whilst rewarding hardcore fans by scratching the itch. Iconic vocalist Barney Greenway sat down with us to explain the record’s origins.
“When we go into the studio to make an album, we’ve flogged ourselves to death and like have a load of extra songs despite the fact that obviously, we’re not a band that writes eight songs an album, to the contrary. So we had a rake of stuff leftover, some that we knew we were going to use, although we didn’t know which extra songs would be for the initial pressings of the album, you know, because the people that buy the stuff, they don’t need to do that, you know, so you like to give them a couple of extra tracks for doing that,” he explains.
“So once those are gone, we found ourselves with a lot of material leftover. Even before that realisation, we had talked about doing a mini-album, in the spirit of the days when we used to go to underground gigs back in the day and a band would release an EP out of nowhere. With like no announcement at all and you’d be like, ‘blimey this is great, you know?’ So that’s what we kind of wanted to do and that’s what we’ve done you know. All the material was there, we didn’t need to do anything new, it was all ready to go, we just had to arrange it with the track order and get it mastered.”
Whilst Resentment Is Always Seismic… is built around some stellar tracks left over from their great 2020 release, the EP also features two cover tracks, something NAPALM DEATH are no strangers to. With the chance to play music from the bands that inspired them and wear their influences on their sleeve, painting the original tracks with a NAPALM DEATH brush is always a challenge for the band and a different listening experience for fans. On this record, the BAD BRAINS’ Don’t Need It and SLAB!’s People Pie get put through the NAPALM ringer.
“It could be any one of 100 bands, but we just picked the BAD BRAINS because they’re kind of a pivotal band from hardcore punk music and with a metal infusion, and of course, the reggae side of things from the 80s. They were one of the very early proponents of the style, so that was an easy go-to track really, one minute long, it’s in and it’s gone. The SLAB! cover, now, NAPALM DEATH‘s very influenced by that I mean it’s a catch-all term really but industrial music and its various guises. That kind of sort of dancey industrial stuff was also a big influence for us,” Barney explains.
“They weren’t huge, but they were kind of a cult band sort of if you know that sort of stuff. They were kind of really important so yeah, we did it. It’s really different for us, you know, because of the vocals that are on there, that sort of mix between male and female vocals. We’ve kind of done that before, but not in this way but it’s great and it’s still harsh. You know, the original song is pretty harsh, you know, the baselines and what have you so it’s dancey but still really harsh and abrasive, you know, so perfect song for us really.”
After an 18-month gap in between live shows from Cologne, Germany in March of 2020 to their triumphant return at Bloodstock Open Air in August of 2021, NAPALM DEATH’s incredible consistency remains as an immovable structure at the core of the band. That integrity to the band that they are has kept them at the forefront of extreme music for all these years and nothing can take that away, not even the world shutting down.
“It sounds to a lot of people like a contradiction in terms really, because they would think, oh, NAPALM DEATH, you know, spontaneous, they don’t give a shit. They’ll just, you know, they’ll just basically blast it out of a cannon, you know, and that’s it. But no, it’s still gonna have the quality. It’s always going to be in your own opinion, but you can have good songs. When you play the noisiest kind of music, you can still have really good songs. So that’s what we try and do, I would not be okay with putting a substandard album out. Obviously, it’s subjective, you know, so what I think is good, someone else might think is crap. This might sound a bit pretentious to somebody, but I’ve got too much pride in the art, you know, I mean, I don’t want to release something that I think is half-assed or second best for me. No chance, not going to it doesn’t matter what it is, you know.”
Resentment Is Always Seismic – A Final Throw Of Throes is out now via Century Media Records.
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