Is there a better extreme metal band out there than Napalm Death in 2020? Is there any other band in their third act with this much life, this much vitality? Definitely not, and new album Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism proves that, the band as hungry and ravenous as ever. 

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”. This is an incredible, diverse, and passionate album played by true genre-pushers, and they close it out in true Napalm Death style, with the industrial-tinged sludge crawl of “A Bellyful Of Salt And Spleen”, which turns into an eerily melodic soundscape before marching us off to despair, only thing bringing us back to life is starting this incredible record over again from track one. There won’t be an extreme metal release this year better than this one.