Search - Napalm Death :: Noise for Music's Sake

A music reflecting the dilemmas of western man

Jacques COULARDEAU | OLLIERGUES France | 09/08/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Metallic metal. I mean the Goths have arrived and landed, the Vikings have just set foot on land and are marching up to Canterbury or some other city that can be looted and pillaged and burnt down to the ground and in which there are some important bishop or nobles that can be captured and then ransomed before burning the city and beheading the hostage anyway. A hostage is like bait to catch fish, honey to catch flies. What does this metal, extreme metal mean? It brings some strange work on sound with some noise here and there that is used to give some density to the already heavy structure and texture. Don't look for any harmony in the standard meaning. Just repetitive elements that beat our eardrums to some kind of rupture point and yet they don't break so that we slide into this sound, into this rhythmic harmony and we abandon ourselves to these nannies of the napalm age. And that is the very question we have to answer if we can; Where does this music come from. It comes from a world in which noise is becoming the only material element that still has some existence and that overwhelm and drown everything else. And the most extreme noise in our world is the noise of war. War id our world and we have to live in it, and if you do not have the chance of living next to the front, this music is going to provide you with a fair imitation. But then what about the voice, at times voices? They just complete the fall into that pit of cannibalistic war noise; they are the voices of human-man hell, of man-fabricated apocalypse, of the homo sapiens gone crazy by listening onlu to his death instinct, not even survival instinct since war is the best way to die and there is no guarantee you will survive once this machine has been set on its path of blood and sweat. So the voices try to explain in sounds that are shouts and yells but not words that the world is falling down into some kind of abyss that is not even dark or black. It is the color of fire, red like blood, scarlet like rape, vermilion like torture, and so many other shades of red. Don't expect you will survive, because you are bound to die, to just dive and drop into it. Good riddance in a way since we don't need any of you, weak hearted and pale skinned natives of the western wealthy ditch of mud and blood. The only meaning is in the titles of these pieces and I find them aggravatingly dense: Mass Appeal Madness, From Enslavement To Obliteration, etc. That is Social Sterility at its utmost and perfect embodiment. The second CD is quite identical to the first one, though we discover they can speak in an articulated languages in the live session to introduce their silence-breaking music, their exploration n beyond the sound barrier of deafness because we are deaf to this everyday brutality of the world on our ears, all the more deaf to it that most of us now wear, like some piece of clothing they don't even take off to have a shower, some music player that covers the outside noise, at times with a noise that is even more important. That's a music that wants to make us think about the presence of death all around us. Biut as I said before, after a while it becomes comfortable to let us go down into its lush texture and we are no longer aware of any outside world. Does this music defeats itself? Probably, but we could discuss it for a long time.



Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

"

Great place to start, excellent compilation!

Is It Dead Yet | The Dark | 02/03/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It took a few weeks for me to really be able to take in all that this compilation offers (56 tracks = lots of listening), but this was one of the first releases from Napalm Death I have aquired.



Its a great place to start for anyone new to the band (I have since purchased most of their other albums).



The compilation as a whole is excellent, but I really like Disc 2. Highlights are Truth Drug, Pride Assassin, and Food Chains.



Disc 1 is kind of a greatest hits compilation of their 20 year career. Don't just get this album, there are many, many hidden gems on their studio albums that should not be missed. In other words, 'Noise For Music's Sake' is just the tip of the ice berg, but an ample selection of tracks and an excellent place to start.



5 stars for my favorite band.



Barney forever \M/"