Birmingham, UK · grindcore · death metal

Napalm Death

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The band that essentially invented grindcore, still politically ferocious and still capable of a song shorter than this sentence — Birmingham's loudest export.

Napalm Death began in 1981 in Meriden, a village near Coventry, formed by teenagers Nic Bullen and Miles Ratledge, who had been writing a fanzine and playing in local bands. Inspired by the anarcho-punk movement and groups such as Crass, the pair cycled through several names before settling on Napalm Death, and the lineup around them changed repeatedly through the early 1980s.

By 1987 the band had accelerated far past its punk origins. Debut album Scum, recorded with two entirely different lineups across its two sides, is widely treated as the founding document of grindcore; its one-second track You Suffer remains the most cited curiosity. Drummer Mick Harris, who joined in 1985, is credited with popularising the blast beat. John Peel's support helped carry the records well beyond the underground.

No original members remain, but the long-running core of vocalist Mark "Barney" Greenway, bassist Shane Embury and drummer Danny Herrera has held since around 1990. Guitarist John Cooke has filled that role live since Mitch Harris stepped back from touring in 2014, and the band moved through death metal, from 1990's Harmony Corruption onward, into more industrial and experimental territory over subsequent decades.

The lyrics stay explicitly political, addressing capitalism, bigotry and state violence. Napalm Death has released sixteen studio albums, and Scum and its 1988 follow-up From Enslavement to Obliteration have sold a combined 400,000 copies worldwide; by 2003 the band ranked as the seventh-best-selling death metal act in the United States.

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grindcoredeath metal