Now that my top picks of 1995 have gone to press, '96 already hath spawned my number one album (so far) next time around: Diatribes, the anxiously awaited follow-up to 1994's Fear, Emptiness, Despair, by the reigning lords of the grindcore realm, Napalm Death. Preceded by the Greed Killing EP (featuring two tracks from the full-length, four unreleased tracks, and a live version of the classic "Plague Rages"), Diatribes is undeniably the apex of their long career on the beloved U.K. scene. The album's scope encompasses a few groundbreaking diversities for the band: doom-metal braking ("Cold Forgiveness"), near-rap verses ("Cursed To Crawl"), Brutal Truth-like background screams ("Placate, Sedate, Eradicate" et al.) and a unforgettablerock twist ("Greed Killing"), while never forsaking their trademarkguttural grind in a whirlwind of blinding fury. Excitedly, I reserved my interview slot well in advance, so when guitarist Mitch Harris called from Earache HQ in New York City, I was poised to discuss the band's current stylistic variety. As I thought, since a few of the members have been engaged in such differing side projects (Mitch in Meathook Seed; bassist Shane Embury in Blood From The Soul and the new Malformed Earthborn; vocalist Barney Greenway writing for the esteemed Metal Maniacs), it is relatively easy for them to stay focused on quality Napalm material.
"The projects always help us get ideas out of our systems; if we didn't do them, we'd always be stuck and not know which way to go," elaborates Mitch. "By trying those ideas, we run into different things; the more we experiment, the more we find out what will work with Napalm and what won't. It's just figuring out where to draw the line-that's why it's been two Napalm records in a row without any projects, so when we know what's up with Napalm, we know which way to go with our other stuff. Which is basically farther away from the Napalm thing; like Napalm is guitar-based, and the other stuff is getting more and more tripped out. That just doesn't have a place in Napalm . . . at the moment."
Since "grindcore" was their own invention back in the mid '80s,Napalm Death have not only changed the way bands approach the genre but also serve as a kind of climate control for the U.K. scene. Harris remains humble yet proud.
"As soon as Napalm got more metal-influenced back in '88, the people from the early, early hardcore scene kinda just disappeared, and a whole new audience came. Then this whole death metal thing happened everywhere-Napalm, Carcass, Bolt Thrower, like that. Eventually everyone got signed, everyone was influenced by the same bands, and it killed itself, but in a way it became stronger, like Pantera, Machine Head, Fear Factory, Sepultura. That's what the scene has become, and Napalm's always gone its own way. We're looking toward the year 2000 and bringing new elements into the band, new extremes to challenge the norm."
One of 1994's new extremes was the release of Meathook Seed's Embedded, one of the finest industrial experi-metal albums ever. This outing saw Mitch working with Trevor Peres and Donald Tardy of Obituary, whom he got to know while touring on the now-legendary Campaign For Musical Destruction.
"Shane had a lot of input on it, too," he explained. Embury was tapped to play live to promote the new project but ended up not playing due to schedule conflicts. This year may very well be graced with a second Meathook Seed release, which is currently nearing completion and "veering away from the whole metal thing," Mitch expounds. "If you listen to 'Sea Of Tranquility,' if you can imagine guitar mixed with that stuff but with different tempos and different samples . . . it's gotta be totally f*cked up acid music, basically-but intense at the same time."
Several new songs-"Greed Killing," "Glimpse Into Genocide,""Placate, Sedate, Eradicate," and "All Links Severed"-sport a high-pitched backing vocal reminiscent of Brutal Truth's Kevin Sharp. A friend informed me that it was Mitch on backups, but, as Mitch himself corrected me,
"actually it was Barney! I'll do them live, but Barney's scream has actually gotten better. I was kinda looking forward to doing some vocals on the new Napalm, but Barney did his screams and they sounded cool, so I said f*ck it (laughing)! I think Barney did a really cool job on the vocals."
Though the hand-in-hand CD/EP release is intended to be a re-introduction of sorts, the band prefaced this with the inclusion of "Twist The Knife (Slowly)" (from Fear, Emptiness, Despair) onthe platinum Mortal Kombat soundtrack. Yep, over a million people bought a disc with a Napalm cut on it! The initial involvement was due to Napalm's former ties with Columbia Records, as Mitch describes.
"They were supposed to release that soundtrack. I always thought it'd be cool to see Napalm on a soundtrack, but I didn't really look forward to it because, you know, when you build up your hopes . . . " Nevertheless, the song made it, though heavily edited for the film. "I guess they wanted to use it because of the title kinda fit it in with the Mortal Kombat theme. Whatever, man, it was f*ckin' cool! At the end of the day it wasn't even our decision, but it's cool to think that there might be a younger audience out there buying it and actually being turned on to that heavier type of music, Fear Factory, and that techno stuff."
Fortunately for Mitch, he doesn't have to think too hard about new audiences hep to the band's aural onslaughts-it's already happening. Diatribes and the Greed Killing EP will prove what history has already recorded: Napalm Death are grindcore, intelligent and abundant, and continue to be one of the few old-school outfits that endeavor to keep metal fresh and exciting. And if you know exactly what's good for you, you will experience them head-
