Metal Riot

Many cheers to U.K. grindcore pioneers Napalm Death, who released their new studio album Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism on Friday via Century Media Records. The legends have seen the album place highly on several international sales charts:

Germany: # 18

Austria: # 37

Switzerland: # 26

Finland: # 35

Belgium: # 88

Spain: # 78

France: # 120

UK (Rock Chart): # 3

U.S. charts:

# 5 Top New Artist Albums

# 6 Current Hard Music Albums

# 14 Current Rock Albums

# 41 Top Current Albums

# 48 Current Digital Albums

# 57 Digital Albums

# 58 Billboard Top Albums

And check out a “Metal Talks” episode with Napalm Death vocalist Mark ‘Barney’ Greenway via Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX4Woqxy7tpda

Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism is the highly anticipated follow-up to 2015’s acclaimed Apex Predator – Easy Meat album and the sjxteenth studio album effort by Napalm Death. It was again recorded with longtime producer Russ Russell and features artwork by Frode Sylthe.

NAPOLI VIOLENTA

Hey everyone. So wow, I had a crazy week. I have been in the hospital for a week and finally emerged in a Twilight Zone-like calm to a glowing parking lot after a huge Isaias related storm had passed that I filmed out my hospital room window in Kingston, NY. I was super sick and didn’t know I had new onset diabetes. My A1C was like 14.3, so super shitty. Thankfully I don’t have COVID like I thought (though I was confused cuz I have been super careful). But yeah, I have almost never been sicker in my life and it feels beyond awesome to be back home with my cat, listening to Emma Ruth Rundle’s On Dark Horses and feeling the absolute luxury of a fan blowing on me in bed. Lol. It is the little things after a scare like that.

Basically, I kind of have to keep my cool and act like Obama now – as in, stay chill no matter what the hell is going on (does that mean I can drone people still though?) and really monitor my sugar levels. For someone with an insane history of not taking the best care of myself at points in my life, I should still count myself lucky. And I can still write to you all about head caving metal and punk. So let’s get on that.

First, some killer grind from Italy! “Jesuscrust Superscum” rocked my face off!

NAPOLI VIOLENTA was born in the Neapolitan hinterland in 2018. Four old exponents of the Neapolitan metal/HC punk scene whose identity remains unknown and shrouded in silence started collaborating to conjure up the most dangerous kind of extreme music. The intent was immediately to merge Poliziottesco – a subgenre of crime and action films that emerged in Italy in the late 1960s – and Grindcore, two worlds, two revolutions that at first sight couldn’t be any more distant, but both renowned for being cynical, infamous and violent.
The project therefore takes its name from the film of the same name directed by Umberto Lenzi in 1976, “Napoli Violenta”, the second chapter of the “Trilogia Commissario Betti”, starring Maurizio Merli and with a soundtrack by Franco Micalizzi. Musically, inspiration is clearly drawn by early Napalm Death, Terrorizer, Repulsion, Carcass, Extreme Noise Terror, Brutal Truth… the logo itself is a clear example of “pezzotto” (fugazi art), which represents a tribute to the genre.

NAPOLI VIOLENTA are proud to announce that they have signed a worldwide contract with Time To Kill Records, joining the label’s growing roster which includes some acts I love like 5Rand and Shockproof. I am gonna post the band’s nice tribute to John Saxon below, since I was super sick and didn’t get to post anything when he died. Anyway, stay tuned for more from this band cuz they absolutely destroy our collective asses.

Anyway, thank you everyone who loves this site and it is good to still be here. I spent days like on the edge of a potential coma and could barely move, so it feels amazing to be human again.

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In loving memory of John Saxon 5/8/1935 – 25/7/2020, one of the greatest "poliziottesco" actors, we remember his charisma in cult films including: Italia a mano armata, La legge violenta della squadra anticrime, Una Magnum Special per Tony Saitta, Il Cinico, l'infame, il violento and of course Napoli Violenta by U. Lenzi 1976. As well as with other great movies with Mario Bava, Bruce Lee, Clint Eastwood, Dario Argento, Wes Craven, Robert Rodriguez… R.I.P. 🖤 #johnsaxon #johnsaxonrip #rip #napoliviolenta #grind #umbertolenzi @poliziottesco_italiano @poliziotteschi_70 #poliziottesco

A post shared by Napoli Violenta (@napoliviolentagrind) on Jul 26, 2020 at 7:13am PDT

Cattle Decap have been pretty much my favorite band in death metal for quite awhile and Death Atlas is further proof it is hard to defeat them when it comes to meaningful and at times darkly cynical yet insightful extreme metal. I assume those of you who give a shit about metal probably know about the recent late 2019 release already so I won’t insult your feeble (oops) intelligence with too many details other than that it rules and you should get it. I honestly feel like an asshole that I didn’t review it when it came out but seasonal depression is a bitch and obviously we need to catch up on reviews right now, period. Haha, it isn’t helping that now that Spring is here we have a pandemic but I will try and post some cool album reviews for you hounds soon. Anyway, here’s a funny ass morbid video in the meantime. Ahhhhh. They have manage to kind of politely underscore what doomed fucking idiots the human race are yet again.

“With the cancellation of our ironically titled ‘Europandemic Tour’ and social distancing recommendations set in place, we found ourselves with not much to do. So we figured why not address the elephant in the room in the form of a music video for ‘Bring Back The Plague’ and just film it on our mobile phones instead of with an actual crew. Dave didn’t even have access to a drum kit and nobody is leaving their houses anyways so we decided to lighten the mood with a video. Everything from the band name to the lyrics to the merchandise to the imagery have always been heavily steeped in metaphors and irony always with tongue firmly in cheek, so this new video by David Hall at Uneasy Sleeper may just be our coup de gras…for better, or for worse.” – Travis Ryan

Cattle Decap remind us on The Anthropocene Extinction that we might never get to make another end of century list if we keep up the bullshit.

I recently perused The Guardian’s inconsistent and often absurd best 100 albums of the 21st Century List. While I was shocked and pleased to see PJ Harvey, Joanna Newsome and especially mighty Deftones included relatively high up and while I do love Amy Winehouse, there was some really silly shit on there as well. Really? We are still doing the kiss Kanye’s ass thing? You guys put the album with “All of The Lights” on it in the top 5? A song that praises MJ and calls for forgiveness for “misunderstood” domestic abusers who just need to be shown Rihanna’s body for the rest of their life and who jealously once they get out of jail beat up the lover of the woman the character beat up first in the song? Can we just not? Hey, redemption is great when and if it is actually deserved in life, but Ye as that character sounds like an asshole still in that song and very self-centering…and I am 100 percent certain every Clutch album released in the 21st Century is better than the majority of their list. Shit, my fucking friends bands have made better albums than a lot of that list. Not to mention we are talking about the ENTIRE world of culture and all we can come up with is Kanye and LCD Soundsystem yet again like every shitty homogeneous festival headlining package of the last decade plus? Barf.

Anyway, to each their own but…I was kind of planning on a semi-“best of” list of the last 20 years as I hate how metal and punk often are thrown to the trash heap on these lists. Instead of that however, as taste is at times subjective, I wanted to do a piece on 10 specifically punk and metal or underground albums I think deserved more love which were all fucking excellent and made between 2000-present. All of these babies certainly deserve as many fans as, say, friggin’ United Abominations, And Justice For None or Death Magnetic or whatever the heck. Here are my OWN personal picks BELOW.I am not saying these are like the best of all albums post 00′ but that they deserve revisiting and way more popularity. What are yours?

The Summer Slaughter Tour 2019 has been officially announced. In addition to a “special guest”, this edition will feature:

Cattle Decapitation
Carnifex
The Faceless
Rivers of Nihil
Nekrogoblikon
Lorna Shore
Brand of Sacrifice

Dates BELOW.

photo by reid haithcock

Extreme harsh-grinding quartet FULL OF HELL share the official audio for “Silmaril” off their highly anticipated, new album Weeping Choir.

Longtime fans will be hard pressed to not consider this one of their most scorching and heavy tracks thus far. I am super stoked on this precise and deadly brutality!

FULL OF HELL Comments:
“Silmaril is about the upheaval of forbidden knowledge. We enlisted Paulo Paguntalan, NYC’s own purveyor of gore and death for additional vocal duties on this song. ‘All goes onward and outward, all collapses’.”

Weeping Choir is due out May 17th on CD/LP/CS/Digital. Physical packages are available for pre-order via Relapse.com HERE. Digital Downloads / Streaming Services are available HERE.

FULL OF HELL are also featured as the cover artists for Decibel Magazine’s April 2019 issue. The band will release a limited Decibel Flexi exclusive track “Thundering Hammers”, remixed by JK Broadrick, in the near future.

High Cost

Formerly known as Septic Rot, the formidable NYC 5 piece now known as High Cost blew me away when I heard the advance promo of the up and coming act’s new forthcoming (Nov. 30th, Tridroid Records) Self-Titled release. It is so effin’ awesome to still get that feeling of excitement from a new band sometimes and to remember bygone days when word of mouth, the back of some zine or trusted sources was the main way to find out about extreme music, be it punk, crust or death metal.

Nowadays the internet allows us to almost know about too much and the process of separating the cream from the crap can feel like wading through seas of white noise at times waiting for a pearl of passion, but rest assured the real DIY scene is still thriving and out there. The cassette version of their debut EP contains 7 tracks on Side A and noise remixes and live recordings on side B. Lyrics deal with mental health struggles and are written by lead singer Kiki.

Honestly this almost made my year end list and was in the top twenty five before I had to trim down to fifteen for my final list. This band has huge potential and remind me of how fired up I was when I first heard cool world engaged bands like Landmine Marathon or Disfear or other ragers.

Check out the stomping intro to “Illusion” before it explodes into raw punk and shreds you to bits at lightning speed and then devolves into an awesome Cro-Magnon stomp and by then you will maybe be smooshed flat but hooked and want more.

Let’s meet the gang! Read more below.