NAPALM DEATH - Utilitarian
March 13, 2012, 12 years ago
(Century Media)
Unreal how this grind institution just keeps plowing on, now several albums into a late-career resurgence that puts even CANNIBAL CORPSE’s excellent late-run spree to shame, these blokes putting out a handful of albums that every single goddamn knucklehead I talk to agrees are just excellent. I kinda thought Utilitarian might “just” be another amazing grind album, but, man, here they go again, topping themselves with awesome variety right off the bat, the first three songs alone containing SWANS dirging (long a Napalm staple), vicious grindcore, and noisy saxophone caterwauling. Then there’s more vicious grindcore, interesting riffing that approaches post-punk at times, melodic vocals that don’t really work (stop that, Barney), more vicious grind, smatterings of hardcore, punk, and crust, and a late-album race to the finish line that finds the band sounding like a bunch of young pups, absolute hysteria, go, go, go, end. This, in 2012, from a band who more or less invented the genre, is absolutely inspiring and proves that if they have the energy to do this, there’s pretty much no excuse for anything bad in this world to keep happening. Go, go, go, end.
