Review Summary: The art of innovation.
I doubt extreme metal’s iconic formation needs any introduction. In the past decades Napalm Death was always in motion, and not quite two years later after their previous full-length,
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, the band has released the “aftershock” material from the same recording session in an interesting mini-album format. The result is an absolute power play, a truly modern, truly progressive release.
Personally I can totally understand why
Throes… didn’t have any more space for these songs. The aforementioned full-length was certainly an already fairly complete album, so most likely, this additional set of songs would just break the flow. To fully understand this reasoning, we have to have a closer look at this “leftover” material. First of all, the content within
Resentment is Always Seismic is definitely more colorful and leans towards the more experimental side of the band’s output (
and beyond?). Of course, it also contains classic Napalm Death-ish brutal slabs (fueled by blast-beats and ultra fast riffs, like what you can hear in
”Narcissus”,
”By Proxy” or
Slaver Through a Repeat Performance, for example) but in the mini-album they serve a more important role, Precisely: they serve are the “spine” of the record, dictating the tempo and spreading energy. The other reason why these tracks look better on a separate release comes from how
coherent this tracklist is, not to mention, the total runtime (almost half an hour!) is quite a lot. I mean, if the LP would’ve been thirty minutes longer, that’d be most certainly way too tiring for the desired listening experience. (Let’s admit it, Napalm Death’s music is not gentle.)
But what about the aforementioned experimentalism? Basically, the rest of the mini-album contains something really piquant for the fans of extreme music. Let’s talk about the
covers first. The record contains two cover songs, the first one is
”People Pie”, written by the early ‘90s industrial rock band,
Slab!. Already this information should raise a few eyebrows, because I think it was quite unexpected to hear an industrial take from the band - and to be honest, they really nailed it! The song is a very rhythm-driven piece (that bass tone is superb!), and Shane Embury and Danny Herrera did a really great job in recreating the original vibe. However, the best factor in this cover’s success was the vocal performance, in my opinion. Hearing Barney Greenway’s more experimental side was exciting and refreshing (the result really reminded me to
Bauhaus, believe it or not). Moreover, Catherine Sharples’s (guest singer) contribution to the chorus was also really delightful, even though these pretty much
soul-ish vocals in such industrial soundscape might sound very unusual at first, but in the end it gave a really special flavor to the overall result (similarly to the original song). The other cover song was taken from the hardcore legends, Bad Brains’ self-titled release. Napalm Death’s take on
”Don’t Take It” was also a rather successful experiment, as they managed to push this really old-school piece towards a far-far heavier direction. The song is really fast, so it’s recommended to at least spin it twice to fully realize the differences in production (this more modern and far cleaner sound is very-very fitting), and to notice Barney’s unusually high-pitched vocals.
Finally, let’s talk about the mini-album’s remaining, and arguably most exciting songs: their own experiments.
“Resentment Always Simmers” is a surprisingly slow (stepping into mid-tempo on its fastest point), industrial-infused ominous track, where Barney’s superb vocal performance stands in the center. Other than the energetic and powerful harsh sections, in this song (in others too)
chanting steps into the spotlight, invoking a certain “liturgic” feeling to the creation. The mini-album’s title-track brings similar, but even more unaccustomed results.
”Resentment is Always Seismic” shepherds the album’s flow to Shane Embury’s own realm, as this track is equivalent to the theoretic interconnection of Napalm Death and Dark Sky Burial (Shane’s cinematic industrial-ambient solo project). The combination of extreme metal and this kind of highly textured ambient music is an interesting adventure, and I think this can be seen as a greatly rewarding experiment. Moreover, I found it the perfect way to finish the release with this song, granting an overly complex and fulfilling musical voyage.
There is one more song I want to talk about a bit.
”Man Bites Dogged” bridges their classic brutalism to their experimentation. The song mostly relies on the effect of strong tempo and very groovy riffs, but this composition reaches its pinnacle in the end through an unusual but satisfying style. Specifically: blending more chanting to massively sinister guitar tremolos. Any modern black metal band would gladly insert that part to their sound. Really spectacular, I’d say.
It's a completely normal phenomenon, whenever a band leaves the studio with some extra material left. In some cases these “leftover” songs might appear on the album’s deluxe edition, or perhaps as an EP, but in other cases they will never hit the surface at all. I’m glad they managed to release
Resentment is Always Seismic, because it’s special, very well executed and innovative. The result most certainly goes beyond Napalm Death's known sonical territories, and honestly, this kind of experimentation really suits them. We need more stuff like this!
