NAPALM DEATH – Time Waits For No Slave

It’s truly amazing; Napalm Death have been delivering violent Metal since 1987 when Scum saw the light of the day having Lee Dorian (now in Cathedral) behind the mic. The British band built strong foundations in the Gridcore scene and left a distinct sonic signature that was nicely wrapped around the deeply political and social lyrical content.

Time Waits For No Slave is the thirteenth addition to Napalm Death weaponry and (as always) a violent album with die hard grooves, high velocities and of course flaming lyrics.

“Strongarm” literally kicks in storming the speakers leaving absolutely no space to breathe or even think. The fast-as-hell Punk based rhythm guitar builds a granite sonic wall erasing all possible doubts whether the Brits still possess the ‘Gridcore mojo’. “Diktat” adds and reminds the listener of the tag Death Metal that goes hand in hand with Napalm Death musical identity. The neck snapping groove, along with the slower (for Napalm Death standards) break, looks towards Chuck Schuldiner’s territory and his legendary band Death. The homonymous track comes with a slight surprise of some clean vocals that add melody (yeah melody) in the brutal assault of this sound grinder. It seems that the band tried to experiment a little bit and judging by the result they did well. Fast and violent breaks bring them a step inside the Black Metal territories while the guitar harmonies keep an up-to-date connection by flirting with the Melodic side of the well known Gothenburg scene.

Barney’s photo should be found next to the term ‘Gridcore vocals’ and his performance here is a full scale seminar. High pitched screams and deep growls are here to rip apart all the amateur vocal chords and torture our ears. The combination of these hate fueled vocals to the cynical, political and social related lyrics is so powerful that they literally take the music to a higher level. It is true, and also sad, that inside this global economical crisis, the social turbulence and the ‘traditional’ social discrepancies of Time Waits For No Slave is here as the fitting soundtrack. The average man’s every day struggle for survival without the slight help from all the governments is like high performance fuel pumping inside the Napalm Death well oiled steamroller.

The hearty Punk backbone is still one of the main elements and can be found in each of the fourteen tracks that are served up here with an in-your-face attitude that loudly states that compromise is not an option. Indeed, Napalm Death come with an impressive stability in terms of musicianship and of course attitude that lasts more than two decades. The two Leaders Not Followers releases justly raised some doubts about Napalm Death’s ability to meet the standards they created and started to fade with The Code Is Red… Long Live The Code and Smear Campaign and were totally erased with this album. The kings of Gridcore are back in full force; join them!