Napalm Death have been working on their 16th studio album for almost a year now, which is an eternity for a grindcore band. In offering an update on the folllow- up to 2012’s Utilitarian, Barney Greenway leads off by stating that he knows that it’s kind of ridiculous. He also gives some song titles for the album, due out in early 2015, some of which are great:
“When we say that we’ve been working on the album recording for nearly a year, people might be thinking that this all sounds a bit too extravagant for Grindcore-type behaviour. The full story is though that we’ve been recording it in segments to try and achieve varying types of sonic assault. There is a belief in certain quarters that you can only do so much with our particularly noisy strain of music. We think otherwise, so as well as a few stylistic quirks on the album (that are sometimes happy accidents), generally it’s rawer, perhaps a little looser and of course always dense, nasty and, hopefully, invigorating too. Certainly not more polished – yuk!
Russ Russell helped us to give lots of people headaches down the years. He doesn’t mind us adopting certain, erm, techniques with studio equipment that most producer-engineers would find somewhat distasteful. So back we went again with Russ to Parlour Studios in the comparatively serene surroundings of Northamptonshire to do damage. There’s possibly some of the fastest and spazziest stuff we’ve ever done and, on the other end of the scale, some of the weirdest, most oppressive and adventurous no-wave-type stuff too.
Some song titles for you to chew on: “Copulating Snakes“, “Dear Slum Landlord” (aired at Roadburn 2014), “What is Past Is Prologue“, “Stunt Your Growth“. We’re nearly finished – we promise!”
In the meantime, the band will continue touring, including two festivals in America later this month, the Housecore Horrorfest on October 25 and the Knotfest on October 26.
