Well, it’s been twelve years since Napalm Death let loose the amazing From Enslavement to Obliteration album, which effectively killed rock and roll dead in a 21-song blitz of demented ferocity that baffled many, and seemed even comical at the time for its passion and power. How is a band capable of doing that? They seemed to pack more energy and ummph into one 30 second song, like "Retreat to Nowhere," than other "aggro" bands did in their entire careers. With their 1987 debut Scum, they made punk-rock redundant and boring. Punk is a Rotting Corpse was the name of a 1982 demo of theirs, and it’s painfully obvious how true that was/still is.

In 2000 A.D., this band is still plugging along. In an age when punk has become a fashion statement and a tired cliché that has more to do with synchronized leaping with your guitar, or making your angst catchy (Darby Crash spins in his grave as I write this), and marketable, Napalm Death deliver an entire album devoted to songs about what a pile of shite the music business had devolved into. I put forth that punk rock nowadays is more an idea than a sound. John ("Rotten") Lydon is a rich old fart, living on Balboa Island, California. When he isn't suing former band-mates on television, he’s reforming his old group "for the money." He laughs in the people’s faces, and I can actually appreciate his honesty. His last words on stage as a Sex Pistol were "Ever get the feeling you're being cheated?"

There are still people (like my brother, Patrick, who was born after the glory days of Black Flag) who desperately want punk rock to remain valid. Yep, he still has a Mohawk, and thinks he’s ‘wild’ for it, even though all of his friends are punk too. "Mom? Can I please go to the mall and get another Exploited shirt? They're on sale this weekend?" Does anyone aside from myself see how wrong that is? Meanwhile, Napalm Death are destroying punk music, new-metal, jungle, alternative (To what exactly? Not to getting PAID!), alt. country, R&B, techno, jazz, hip-hop, goth, industrial, drum n bass, folk, and rock and roll. Utterly. That or they're crudely re-shaping it, the way the Velvet Underground once did.

Napalm Death parted company last year with Earache Records, the label that they put on the map by filling it to the brim with their side-projects, friends bands, and almost two dozen studio EPs, singles, live albums, split releases, and videos. It’s unknown what the label will do now, and the band have since taken their work to Dream Catcher, but the company that helped sell over a million albums by the "End of Music As We Know It" will probably survive, even though I'm positive they aren't really enjoying the split. Napalm, however, seem totally renewed by the experience. A good friend of mine was in a band on Earache, and he likened it to a living hell. After his group split up, he still had a binding contract with the label, and had to get permission from them to have his new band's single released on another label. It’s a business. Anyone who tries to simplify it and say "it’s this beautiful expression of your art, and you enter into a deal with a record company ,sell your albums, and then you become pals with them blah, blah, blah" has NEVER done anything remotely similar to the real thing. Money. Money changes everything. It’s funny how some people change their whole attitude once the concept of actually making a living at this stuff enters the picture. That’s the cue for any random sixteen-year old, who still lives with his mommy, to cry "Sellout!"

What I'm enjoying about Enemy of the Music Business right now is the way 99.8% of this fourteen-song effort just sails over my head. Weird, dissonant riffing piles up with drums that seem to be imploding, and you feel a strong sense of claustrophobia when playing this CD. The first thing that most people scratch their heads in amazement at is the utter intensity of it all. It sound like the band is fighting its own audience off. Armed with only a salty microphone, drums and guitars. This CD should establish Napalm Death as noise artists ala Aube or Merzbow. Forget grindcore. Poo on death-metal. Just cuz they apparently have an aversion to salon visits doesn't mean anything about their music.

While reviewing Words From the Exit Wound (their previous album), I likened Napalm Death to an ‘angry Sonic Youth’, but they go beyond what Sonic Youth do now. One band has chosen to mellow with age, while another has fragmented their sound into an incomprehensible maze of starts and stops and arrangements that have little to do with ‘proper indie-rock songs’. Because Napalm have chosen to apparently abstain from fashion, they get less groupies, and thus have more bile/song fodder. It works! When EMF were a flavor of the minute, Napalm released Utopia Banished (1992). Now it’s the age of the boy band, and ND are arguably at their most vital.

Another thing: have Napalm Death been listening a lot to The Cardiacs before they wrote these songs? No major odd time work (which The Cardiacs always throw in at unusual periods) that glares out, but these songs have a bit of ‘math rock’ in them, for sure. The drumming isn't so much in Dixie Dregs or Yes time signatures, but the way Danny Herrera will come out of a verse with a strangely-timed fill will keep your finger on the RWD button. What? I'm also starting to be able to tell the two guitarists' songs apart (maybe I have been listening to Napalm more than is healthy). Jesse Pintado seems to favor the more dissonant riffs (like the amazing "Fracture in the Equation," the best ending ever to a Napalm Death CD), while Mitch Harris favors guitar-bits that are... well, more round sounding (that doesn't make any sense to you, huh?).

Living in California like I do, I may have had a few months to wait for a copy of this. My brilliant friend in London just shipped this to me, thankfully. Because I'm so enamored already of this band, I already anxiously poured over the two reviews I saw yesterday in British rock journals. They both called this a "return to form", and I have to agree. I've been listening to Napalm Death avidly since 1989, and I just couldn't get my head around this record. Just like I used to feel.

(C) 2000 - Jason Thornberry