0205. Napalm Death
Scum
Well, hello there! The first grindcore album on the list? The first grindcore album in the world!
28 tracks in total, and with the record-breakingly short You Suffer (clocking in at 1,3 seconds) as the measuring stick the rest of the songs
Just about half of them reaches beyond the minute mark and about the same amount (albeit not entirely the same songs) are performed by an almost completely replaced band. Only the drummer remains, so they kinda pulled a reverse Spinal Tap there, I guess.
"But come on man, how does it sound?" one might ask so that I can provide the following answer: pretty much like someone threw their garage down the stairs and played it through a fuzz box. Well, at least for parts of the A-side. Mostly it's heavy metal with double-time on the bass drum and a singer who tries to keep from vomiting from the evil in his words. Can't help but wonder if the shifts in the (relative) epic (hey, it's a four minute song on an album where the average is one 'n' a half) Siege Of Power were something they played or if they just sped up the master tapes in the final mix.
On the B-side (with the new setting) it gets more ...polished? With two singers (I use that term loosely) who takes on the duties of growling and weezing in a their respective ways and what sounds like more expertise in the musical department it gets more listenable. Ironically the better tracks are also the ones where it gets more extreme and start to really define their genre of grindcore.
