Conventional wisdom has it that a band's debut is usually where its inspiration and fire peaks, the group hungry to spread its message and hellbent on taking over the world (with no lesser goal in sight). But as metal approaches its 50th birthday, we're seeing some interesting things, including the late career creative peak. For heritage acts as varied as Deep Purple, Venom and, yes, Napalm Death, middle age (well, a bit older for Purple) means embracing who you are, naysayers and trends be damned, and embracing life, because it's fleeting: the results are usually self-assured albums that focus wholly on the band's strengths, leading to distilled bolts of coveted inspiration and fire.

Napalm Death has been in that kind of zone for a decade now. Since releasing its first Century Media album, The Code Is Red... Long Live The Code, in 2005, these Englishmen have written a sequence of albums that have perfected the band's unique brand of death-grind. Smear Campaign, Time Waits For No Slave and Utilitarian have possessed the vibrancy and vitality of a band half Napalm Death's age, though this scribe is slowly starting to believe vitality might peak later in life. Apex Predator - Easy Meat follows its predecessors and adds more veneer to Napalm's legacy, the songs here affirming, fantastically written and, most importantly, alive, as Barney, Shane, Mitch and Dan righteously move ahead, at full speed. 28 years after Scum, a record that changed everything, Napalm Death continues to discover that its latter day instinct of survival is strong, and incredibly on point.