NAPALM DEATH - "ORDER OF THE LEECH" (SPITFIRE RECORDS)

 

Napalm Death's previous album, "Enemy of the Music Business", was so unrelenting and the individual tracks so indistinguishable, that I have in the mean time flogged it on Ebay. I was glad to discover (through Kazaa Lite, blessing to the music industry though it doesn't know it) that "Order of the Leech" was more to my taste. Good riffs, lots of riffs, and oh so much anger. Who keeps these guys angry? How many times have they been fucked over? There seem to be entire legions of people ready to provide these guys with some sort of excuse to write the intensely miffed kind of songs they keep on doing. These guys have been going at it since 1988 or thereabouts, and I for one am amazed at the consistency in energy and aggression that they manage to somehow translate into music. It is damn loud, it is damn frantic...it's classic Napalm Death. On top of that, "Order of the Leech" has what seems to be the heaviest bass drum mix ever on their albums.

Rounding a positive review off, obviously, is a little gripe. After the final track there's a couple of minutes of nothing after which there's some semi-funny half-in-joke kindof spoken thing. When will bands learn that the time of doing this 'hidden stuff' is well behind us?

RK

 

Written March 2003

 

Go to the Official Napalm Death site

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