I've always been attracted to the socio-political aspect of Napalm Death. I identify with many of their positions, from their anti-capitalist scourges to their indictments of the State and its inherent abuses. I've never been a vegan, but I feel they do justice in demonstrating the merits of its political position. Of course, even as a carnivore I've always seen at least some merit in the arguments against the consumption of meat. It's never not been the case that I have been revolted by the way animals are processed to make consumer products. Not that I have an issue with fats and bone in my soaps and other household items. In fact, I think that aspect is pretty cool and that it is ingenious how animal parts find their way into everyday objects. I think the worst thing you can do after killing an animal is to let it go to waste, allow its death to be in vain. But the scale of the slaughter is unconscionable. The waste, in terms of the sheer number of lives sacrificed, the byproducts, and often whole animals, that end up going into landfills to spoil, and the literal oceans of excrement and effluent that poison the land and water around these factory farms, it is all the stuff of nightmares. Not to mention that these operations contribute mightily to the overall green house gas emissions that are thrown up into the air by human industry, contributing daily, and not insignificantly, to a potential future where human civilization collapses in the face of ecological ruin. This is all so that certain corporations can force-feed the market their products, low-grade provisions they've learned how to sell regardless of actual demand for them. Clogging the arteries of not only the consumer but the global supply chain with dead animal flesh.
You as the consumer of a cheeseburger, whether it be from a drive-in or a chic boutique restaurant, might think that this whole apparatus exists to serve you, but you're wrong. The consumer is also exploited. The consumer may not be the one who is slaughter for meat, but they are the termination point for the cycle of these products that allows the deviation of profit to be possible. The point of a cheeseburger in this system is not to provide a human body with nourishment, it is to derive a profit. And in learning to make the provision of these goods profitable, the companies that sell them, and their allies in the State, have an incentive to eliminate alternatives for the consumer, restrict the range of meaningful options, and undermine self-awareness and self-reliance. The consumer is like a grape that must be squeezed to make a curdled, blood-colored wine. You are a mark, not a human, not even an animal in this system, just a node that needs to be activated in order to complete a cycle. Hence, Apex Predator – Easy Meat.
Throughout Throes of Joy, we find Napalm Death stepping over the lines of convention, much as they have done throughout their careers, but this time, achieving odd and unexpected results with alarming frequency. The atmosphere and industrialism of Apex Predator is carried over and manifest on tracks like "Invigorating Clutch" with its mechanistic gauge and post-punk splay of grooves, and the Killing Joke-esque cackle and hypnotic, fire-walking skin-peel of "Amoral." Both tracks build on and improve upon the template of the previous album's designs. There is a perverse sense of empathy conveyed on "Joie De Ne Pas Vivre," which relishes in an acidic slurry of death-rock guitars, superheated in a cauldron of animous by Danny's heathen flame fanning percussion. You can still recover glimmers of Naplam Death's past punk-pariah ruminations on tracks like the ferocious "Backlash Just Because," but you'll be getting your hardcore with a heeping helping groove metal, and this is doubly true of the cut-throat, cry and gnash of "That Curse of Being in Thrall." If you thought that the experimental nature of the album was confined to only a few tracks though, you are of course our of your depths, as the title track with the cleaving shape of its metallic hardcore charge, Converge cultivating crush and the tread-wheel like pinch-and-strip of its grooves reveals, even thirty-odd years into their career, Napalm Death are not only the masters of their craft, but one of grindcore's most enduring and extreme pioneers.
Thematically, Throes of Joy explores the Anglo-World as attempting to revel in the pleasures of its privilege and "end-of-history" status despite the demonstrable failures of its political and economic projects. The prices for these failures are felt acutely elsewhere around the world, creating mounting refugee crises due to environmental collapse and social-political instability, the barest understanding of which rarely breaches the conscious awareness of the citizens of US and UK, and when it does, this rupture often takes the form of a graphic image of a migrant washing ashore on a beach after their boat capsized, or a father still clutching his infant daughter as they both lay face down on the banks of a river somewhere on the Texas border. The gravity and reality of these images glide off the flat-smooth surface of the public's psyche while they scroll CNN on your phones, waiting for your brunch order to arrive at an outdoor cafe that used to be an autobody repaired shop before returning to their condo that used to be the hermitage of an Eastern Orthodox Church.
Thematically, Throes of Joy explores the Anglo-World as attempting to revel in the pleasures of its privilege and "end-of-history" status despite the demonstrable failures of its political and economic projects. The prices for these failures are felt acutely elsewhere around the world, creating mounting refugee crises due to environmental collapse and social-political instability, the barest understanding of which rarely breaches the conscious awareness of the citizens of US and UK, and when it does, this rupture often takes the form of a graphic image of a migrant washing ashore on a beach after their boat capsized, or a father still clutching his infant daughter as they both lay face down on the banks of a river somewhere on the Texas border. The gravity and reality of these images glide off the flat-smooth surface of the public's psyche while they scroll CNN on your phones, waiting for your brunch order to arrive at an outdoor cafe that used to be an autobody repaired shop before returning to their condo that used to be the hermitage of an Eastern Orthodox Church.
"Iniquity" is the phrase that jumps out at me the most when examining the lyrics on Throes of Joy. I am thinking specifically of how it appears on the final track, "A Bellyful of Salt and Spleen." There is a sense that the pain that the rest of the world is experiencing is manifestly unfair. That conditions as they exist are unsustainable. That we are only able to ignore these realities through constant delusion aided by a terminate drip of dopamine fed directly into our brains through social media, streaming services, and video games, and that everything bad about the world is attributable to lack of proper virtue exhibited by our fellow citizens. There is a sense that even knowing the truth and how we avoided dealing with it isn't enough to actually effect meaningful change. That because changing the world would require difficult work, and because any change in our political projects is rife with uncertainty and discomfort, it is better to allow them to persist rather than explore alternatives. If you feel like there are not more alternatives, and the future is spent, this is why. As a society, we are in a staring contest with the sun, and we're expecting the great ball of fire to blink first.
