Back catalogue: Metal

Review: RECOMMENDED
17 albums in and it feels like Napalm Death are only just hitting their stride. Well, they've been hitting their stride for roughly 17 albums, but while many bands - especially those at the more frenetic and uncompromising end of things - tend to start, err, compromising after four or five long forms, the Birmingham grindcore masters still sound fresh. Albeit fresh but covered in sweat and rage.

Following on from 2020's Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, Resentment is a mini-LP that picks up where its predecessor left off. Among the highlights is a fantastic cover of 1980s industrial electronic outfit Slab!, but really it's nigh-on-impossible to pick specifics here - buckle up, turn it up, and let the ferocity wash over you. Suffice to say, keeping this level of intensity without winding up sounding like you're screaming into the abyss isn't easy, and Napalm Death's career should be considered a masterclass.

Review: 2024 saw the return of easily the biggest powerviolence act to ever decimate speakers and human hearing - Nails, who picked up right where they left off with their ferocious fourth full-length Every Bridge Burning, marking their first new album in almost a decade. Despite rave reviews, many of the fanbase argue that its 2016 predecessor You Will Never Be One Of Us is still the band's finest achievement of musical malevolence to date. Their final effort with the original trio line-up of bassist John Gianelli and drummer Taylor Young before both would amicably depart in 2020, these 21 minutes of sonic abrasion (still their longest LP) deliver on everything the Nails ethos stands for - frenetic riffage, crushing breakdowns, hulking grooves and a breakneck pace libel to instil panic attacks, while primary songwriter Todd Jones' nihilistic viewpoint and seemingly anti-everything attitude is barely decipherable through his mouth-full-of-broken-glass vocals. Be warned, however, each and every micro-burst of fury such as the 45-second 'Friend To All' is paid back by the end with the heinously oppressive noise-sludge-doom monolithic closer that is the 8-minute 'They Come Crawling Back'.

Review: Following on from their critically acclaimed 1988 sophomore effort From Enslavement To Obliteration, which marked their final full-length with original vocalist Lee Dorrian and guitarist Bill Steer, Birmingham grindcore legends Napalm Death would redefine and re-establish themselves on 1990's Harmony Corruption. With the addition of current frontman Mark "Barney" Greenway, the group would trek to the iconic Morrisound Recording in Tampa, Florida (studio home to many a classic death metal record from the likes of Cannibal Corpse and Death), to craft a work far more sonically inspired by their outlying peers within the genre. Working from their refined grindcore blueprint, yet imbuing the trudging chaos with especially heavy riffage and even low guttural growls, this newly tempered form of deathgrind would not only re-chart the band's course for the ensuing decades, but cause a connective riff between the two subcultures of metallic extremity still felt to this day. Vocalists from the two legendary Floridian death metal acts Deicide (Glen Benton) and Obituary (John Tardy) also both make appearances on the vile 'Unfit Earth', making for one of the only posse-like grindcore cuts you're likely to ever have invade your ear canals.

Review: Originally released in 1990, Extinction would serve as the sole full-length from New York crust punk pioneers Nausea. While not the first band of misfits to amplify the angst and visceral aggression of hardcore, they are often cited with being integral to the genre's expansion and incorporation of equally heinous sonics from the realms of doom and sludge metal as well as d-beat, with their Discharge influence worn proudly on their tattered sleeves. Equally inspired by the anarcho-punk messaging of Crass, their lyrics urgently represented their views on feminism, anti-racism, anti-war and class conflict, while their apocalyptic world view rivalled that of their peers in Amebix. Delivered with an unmatched vitriol indicative of the time in which they were penned and further bolstered by the now iconically chaotic push-pull of dual vocalists Al Long and Amy Miret, it's bizarre to track the career of drummer Roy Mayorga who would go on to become a mainstay in mainstream metal fulfilling tenure with the likes of Soulfly, Stone Sour, and presently Ministry. Following Svart Records' recent 12" reissue/compilation of the Cybergod and Lie Cycle EPs, the label brings this nihilistic classic home to wax after two decades of absence.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged, warped records***


Arriving as the tenth full-length LP from the Finnish symphonic metal pioneers Nightwish, Yesterwynde shall serve as the third and final instalment of the trilogy of albums they've crafted with current vocalist Floor Jansen, since the departure of her predecessor Anette Olzon. Following on from Endless Forms Most Beautiful (2015) and Human. :II: Nature (2020), as well as Jansen's pop ballad LP Paragon released in 2023, the project promises to boast some of their heaviest and complex compositions to date, while also marking their first without bassist/vocalist Marko Hietala since Century Child (2002), as he would depart the band in 2021. With a self-imposed hiatus planned following release, and no tour dates to speak of, Yesterwynde appears set to provide avid followers with a calculated bookend to their latest era, designed and destined to be poured over and absorbed throughout the coming silence.

Review: Arriving as the tenth full-length LP from the Finnish symphonic metal pioneers Nightwish, Yesterwynde shall serve as the third and final instalment of the trilogy of albums they've crafted with current vocalist Floor Jansen, since the departure of her predecessor Anette Olzon. Following on from Endless Forms Most Beautiful (2015) and Human. :II: Nature (2020), as well as Jansen's pop ballad LP Paragon released in 2023, the project promises to boast some of their heaviest and complex compositions to date, while also marking their first without bassist/vocalist Marko Hietala since Century Child (2002), as he would depart the band in 2021. With a self-imposed hiatus planned following release, and no tour dates to speak of, Yesterwynde appears set to provide avid followers with a calculated bookend to their latest era, designed and destined to be poured over and absorbed throughout the coming silence.

Review: Straight out of Florida, USA, Nocturnus will be a familiar name to any self-respecting metal fan. Bursting onto the scene in 1987, three years later they seminal debut landed, They Key, cementing their status as pioneers of what would go on to be dubbed 'extreme metal' by some. Taking heavy influence from science fiction and a fair share of death metal's sonics, the candle burnt bright but then went out, with the group breaking up just two years later. Reforming for a brief stint, putting out the 1999 LP Ethereal Tomb, by 2002 all would be lost once again. Renaming the group Nocturnus A.D., original member Mike Browning attempted to reinvigorate the project with a different lineup, but even this seemed doomed to fail. That is until 2019, when the record Paradox finally landed. Unicursal is the long-awaited follow up, and hits just as hard.