Napalm Death are an English grindcore band formed in Meriden, West Midlands, in 1981.For the evolution of the death metal and grindcore extreme musical genres, see, Mudrian, A., 2004, Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal & Grindcore, Feral House, Los Angeles. The band currently consists of Barney Greenway on vocals, Shane Embury on bass guitar, John Cooke on lead guitar and Danny Herrera on drums. None of the founding band members remain in the band. From 1989 to 2004, Napalm Death were a five-piece band after they added Jesse Pintado and Mitch Harris as replacements for guitarist Bill Steer. Following Pintado's departure, the band reverted to a four-piece. Mitch Harris left the band in 2014 to focus on his personal life. Since Mitch's indefinite hiatus, guitarist John Cooke can be seen on guitar during live shows.
The band is credited as pioneers of the grindcore genre by incorporating elements of crust punk and death metal, using a noise-filled sound that uses distorted, down-tuned guitars, grinding overdrive bass, high-speed tempo, blast beats, vocals that consist of incomprehensible growls or high-pitched shrieks, extremely short songs, and sociopolitical lyrics. After hiring drummer Mick Harris in 1985, the band gained immense speed and started pushing the limits of how fast drums can be played. The band's debut album Scum, released in 1987 by Earache Records, proved substantially influential throughout the global metal and punk communities.[ Napalm Death] at Allmusic By their third album Harmony Corruption (1990), the band shifted to death metal and began writing longer and more complex songs. In 1991, the other members of Napalm Death fired Mick Harris due to him not being able to play as fast and personality differences. Mick Harris is often seen as the popularizer of the blast beat.
Napalm Death have released sixteen studio albums, and as of 2003 are listed by Nielsen SoundScan as the seventh-best-selling death metal band in the United States. According to former vocalist Lee Dorrian, Scum and From Enslavement to Obliteration (1988) have sold a combined total of 400,000 copies worldwide. In 2016, the staff of Loudwire named them the 26th best metal band of all time.
History
Early history (1981–1986)
Napalm Death were formed in the village of Meriden near Coventry, in the United Kingdom, in May 1981 by Nic Bullen and Miles Ratledge while the duo were still in their early teenage years. The duo had been playing in amateur bands since 1980 as an extension of their fanzine writing, and went through a number of names (including "Civil Defence", "The Mess", "Evasion", "Undead Hatred" and "Sonic Noise") before deciding on Napalm Death in mid 1981. The band were initially inspired by the early wave of punk bands, particularly the anarcho-punk movement (a subgenre of punk music focused on anarchist politics), and associated groups such as Crass.
The first stable line-up of the group consisted of Nicholas Bullen on bass and lead vocals, Simon Oppenheimer on guitars, and Miles Ratledge on drums, and lasted from December 1981 to January 1982. Graham Robertson joined on bass in January 1982. Simon Oppenheimer left the group in August 1982 and was replaced by Darryl Fedeski who left the group in October 1982: at this point, Graham Robertson began to play guitar and Finbarr Quinn (ex-Curfew) joined on bass and backing vocals. The group played concerts throughout 1982 (playing their first concert on 25 July 1982 at Atherstone Miners Club) and 1983 (sharing billing with anarcho-punk groups such as Amebix, The Apostles and Antisect), and made four demo recordings in 1982 and 1983, one of which contributed their first released recording to the Bullshit Detector Volume 3 compilation released by Crass Records in 1984.
The band entered a period of hiatus from the end of 1983 onwards, playing only one concert in 1984 (a benefit for striking mine workers) with additional vocalist Marian Williams (ex-Relevant POS, and sister of the drummer of the group Human Cabbages from Coventry, UK). During this period, Nic Bullen met Justin Broadrick, a guitarist from Birmingham with whom he shared an interest in the music of bands such as Killing Joke, Throbbing Gristle, Crass, Amebix, Swans, and the developing power electronics scene. Bullen joined Broadrick's Final project for a period in 1983.
In July 1985, Napalm Death briefly reformed in order to appear at a concert at the Mermaid in Birmingham which was also notable as the last concert by Final. The group consisted of a four-piece line-up of Miles Ratledge on drums; Bullen - performing vocals, bass and guitar; Graham Robertson on guitar and bass, and Damien Errington on guitar. After this concert, Miles Ratledge and Bullen asked Broadrick to join Napalm Death as guitarist, with Bullen as vocalist and bass player. The band began to develop a musical style which blended elements of post-punk (particularly Killing Joke and Amebix), heavy hardcore punk in the vein of Discharge, and thrash metal (with particular reference to Possessed and extreme metal group Celtic Frost).
The group played their first concert as a trio on 31 August 1985 (playing two concerts on the same day: Telford with Chumbawamba and Blyth Power, and Birmingham with We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It), and began to play regularly in the Birmingham area (particularly at The Mermaid public house in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham) with a wide range of musicians including Icons of Filth, Concrete Sox, The Varukers, Indecent Assault, Decadence Within, and The Groundhogs.
In September 1985, Peter Shaw joined on bass. The four-piece line-up recorded Hatred Surge (the band's fifth demo recording) on 23 October 1985 which the band made available at their concerts and by mail. Following the recording of the demo, Bullen and Broadrick wished to extend their exploration of a more extreme musical style which created a split in the group with Ratledge: as a result, the group splintered and Mick Harris (a local fan) was asked to join as drummer in December 1985.
The trio – Bullen on vocals and bass, Broadrick on guitar and Harris on drums – made their first performance on 15 December 1985 and went on to play many concerts in 1986, predominantly in the Birmingham area, with musicians such as Amebix, Antisect, Chaos UK, Varukers, Disorder and Dirge. The group recorded a sixth demo, From Enslavement to Obliteration, on 15 March 1986, which the group made available at their concerts and through mail, before making a seventh recording later that year, Scum, which was provisionally intended to form part of a split LP with the English hardcore band Atavistic on Manic Ears Records. This recording later became the first side of the band's debut album Scum in 1987.
The band then faced a number of line-up changes. Nic Bullen was becoming frustrated with the musical direction of the group, and began to lose interest as a whole: as a result, Jim Whiteley was asked to join as bass player. The band played a number of concerts as a four-piece before Justin Broadrick left the group to play drums for local band Head of David. The group attempted to find a new guitarist by asking Shane Embury (ex-Unseen Terror and a fan of the group) to join and giving a trial period to Frank Healy (ex-Annihilator, later of Cerebral Fix and Sacrilege). After Broadrick's departure, Nic Bullen's dissatisfaction with the musical direction of the group led him to leave the group in December 1986 (in order to focus on his studies in English Literature and Philosophy at university), leaving the group without any of its original members.
Scum and From Enslavement to Obliteration (1987–1989)
With the departure of Broadrick and Bullen, the remaining members started looking for people who could fill in the roles. Guitarist Bill Steer played in a death metal band based in Liverpool called Carcass, and given the affinity between the two, he joined Napalm Death while still playing an active role in the former. They had also asked another friend, Coventrian Lee Dorrian, to join as vocalist due to his good relationship with the group, even though he had never been in a band before. This line-up recorded the B side of the Scum LP at Rich Bitch studios in early May 1987, and the album was released through Earache Records.
The band promptly lost another member just after they undertook a short tour after the release of Scum. Jim Whiteley left the group (and subsequently joined Weston-Super-Mare based band Ripcord with whom the aforementioned tour had been shared) and Shane Embury (former drummer of Unseen Terror) moved to bass. The band then appeared on two compilation records ('North Atlantic Noise Attack' and the 'Pathological Compilation'), recorded two Peel sessions and a split 7-inch with Japanese band S.O.B. They also returned to Rich Bitch studio once more and recorded their second album: From Enslavement to Obliteration. This was a pioneering album both in terms of vocal technique and the high speed of instrumental performance.
A follow-up release to From Enslavement to Obliteration came in the form of the six song 12-inch EP "Mentally Murdered", which was to be the last recording with the Harris/Steer/Dorrian/Embury line-up. This EP was recorded at the Slaughterhouse Studios and took on a slightly different sound, blending grindcore with death metal. Following the release, Napalm Death were featured on national television in the United Kingdom in a heavy metal special by Arena (BBC 2).
The band continued to tour, but as soon as they came back home from Japan, in July 1989, Steer and Dorrian left the band: Steer decided to dedicate himself full-time to Carcass, while Dorrian formed the doom metal group Cathedral. The group recruited Jesse Pintado (ex-Terrorizer) on guitar and Mark "Barney" Greenway (ex-Benediction) as vocalist. This line-up took part in the Grindcrusher tour organised by Earache Records and featured fellow label-mates Carcass, Bolt Thrower and Florida's Morbid Angel. The group recruited Mitch Harris (ex-Righteous Pigs) as second guitarist after the tour.
Rise to success (1990–1994) In Florida, the group began work on Harmony Corruption. Corruption saw stylistic changes from the band. It exhibited stronger influence from death metal by incorporating blast beats and slower tempos. Following the record's release, Live Corruption, a live recording of the band's 30 June 1990 performance at the Salisbury Arts Centre, was released in 1992.
Negative fan reactions to Corruption and accusations of selling out, compelled the band to reconsider its stylistic changes. The group entered Eddie Van Dale's Violent Noise Experience Club in March 1991 to record six new tracks. The songs produced by this session and released on the "Mass Appeal Madness" 12-inch EP exhibited a much more "raw" quality, again finding favour with fans. This recording, along with the "Mentally Murdered" 12-inch, the split 7-inch with S.O.B. and live tracks from Live Corruption, were released on Death by Manipulation.