BravePicks 2020 - NAPALM DEATH's Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism #10
December 22, 2020, 4 years ago
If there was any year that music was a true saviour, it was 2020. The ultimate diversion, as the world sits in virtual stagnation waiting anxiously for a fix. We will keep it brief here with the COVID commentary. Let’s let the music speak for itself. It is time to unveil our annual BravePicks countdown, where the devout scribes at BraveWords cast their votes at the hits and misses of the year! So who will be our #1? You’ll find out as we count down the BravePick Of 2020 each day in December!
Everybody has an opinion and it’s time for ours! And stay tuned in January for the writers’ individual Top 20s (new studio albums ONLY), Top 5 Brave Embarrassments (a fan favorite!), What/Who Needs To Stop In 2021? and Metal Predictions For 2021. Sadly no concerts. But all will be showcased come the New Year!
This virus can go to hell! Let’s let the Top 30 releases of 2020 rock your world!
BravePicks 2020
10) NAPALM DEATH - Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism (Century Media)
There wasn’t a more brutal album to slam 2020 than Napalm Death’s first full-length in 5 years. Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism goes straight for the jugular with supreme extreme metal with a punk attitude. Vocalist Mark Greenway screams with wild abandonment and shows a squad as sharp as ever with no signs of slowing down. Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism is total excellence and begins the top 10 of BravePicks 2020.
Scribe Gregg Pratt praised the album in his review: Opener “Fuck The Factoid” is actually a bit of a shocker, Barney Greenway’s vocals sounding somehow 10 years younger, and the vibe almost approaching the band’s experimental years, as does raging follow-up “Backlash Just Because”, the band absolutely taking the fire that’s been under their asses for the past several albums and running with it, but with a bit more weirdness layered in. Win-win, which is good, as for this album is-he-in-the-band-or-not? guitarist Mitch Harris didn’t contribute any songwriting (he does play on the album, though); bassist and legendary grindman Shane Embury wrote the entirety of the music on the album, and he didn’t hold back, from the absolutely bonkers post-punk noise of “Joie De Ne Pas Vivre” to the mid-tempo trudge-rock of “Invigorating Clutch”; from the discordant noise rock of the excellent album highlight “Amoral” to the dissonant grindcore of “Acting In Gouged Faith”.
BravePicks 2020 Top 30
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10) NAPALM DEATH - Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism (Century Media)
11) UNLEASH THE ARCHERS - Abyss (Napalm)
12) BLACK STONE CHERRY - The Human Condition (Mascot)
13) HAUNT - Mind Freeze (Shadow Kingdom)
14) ANAAL NATHRAKH - Endarkenment
15) AC/DC - PWRϟUP (Columbia/Sony)
16) BENEDICTION - Scriptures (Nuclear Blast)
17) KATAKLYSM - Unconquered (Nuclear Blast)
18) BLACKGUARD - Storm (Independent)
19) MEXICAN APE-LORD - Survival Cannibalism (Unable)
20) THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER - Verminous (Metal Blade)
21) ENSIFERUM - Thalassic (Metal Blade)
22) PROTEST THE HERO - Palimpsest (Spinefarm)
23) SODOM - Genesis XIX (Steamhammer)
24) INCANTATION - Sect Of Vile Divinities (Relapse)
25) MIDNIGHT - Rebirth By Blasphemy (Metal Blade)
26) NAGLFAR - Cerecloth (Century Media)
27) RAVEN - Metal City (SPV/Steamhammer)
28) KIRK WINDSTEIN - Dream In Motion (Entertainment One)
29) VANDEN PLAS - The Ghost Xperiment: Illumination (Frontiers)
30) GREEN CARNATION - Leaves of Yesteryear (Season of Mist)
