Apex Predator - Easy Meat

Historical context;
Napalm Death have existed longer with Barney and Mitch than all their pre-1990 members combined. I could sulk how the days of From Enslavement and Mentally Murdered will never return since those are still my fave releases in the history of Napalm Death. Or I could just not do that (anymore). Admittedly I did so, a lot, in the era 1994-1998, when Napalm Death had hit rock bottom musically and tried to appeal to the groovy needs of those days. But since the release of ‘Enemy of the Music Business’ back in 2000 the band rediscovered themselves. And so did I.

Back in 1992 a young new group named Fear Factory took the old grindin’ Napalm Death and combined this with influences from Godflesh (a band from an ex-Napalm Death member) and other industrial pioneers like Ministry , to create something not entirely new, but a new refreshing mixture which drew lots of new fans, mostly because of their tight performance. Now Fear Factory’s days of glory have already past after pretty much only 2 real classic albums, but Napalm Death took back the music and have been releasing consistent quality since 2000 again.

Current day;
In 2015, "Apex Predator - Easy Meat", just like the previous 6 full length studio albums, not only brings back industrial grind elements to the UK but Napalm Death remains grindcore in essence, mixing it with crustpunk as well and of course their knack for throwing in old school Voivod riffs and Celtic Frost riffs into the mix. The only thing different on each of the last 6 albums is the balance of styles and influences between them.

If I have to compare ‘Apex Predator’ to an earlier album it would easily be putting Apex somewhere between ‘The Code Is Red’ and ‘Smear Campaign’ stylewise. And this of course is memorable seeing how those are very fine Napalm Death albums.

For those that also took the effort to check out their least interesting era (as said the 1994-1998), a lot of the less grindcore orientated songs and experiments on Apex Predator are refinements of earlier ideas from that period, often as if combining their Utopia Banished album with a dose of experimentalism as shown on Diatribes album. A good example would be trying to mix ‘Ripe For The Breaking’ and ‘Cursed To Crawl’ from the Diatribes album with Utopia Banised’s ‘The World Keeps Turning’ and ‘Dementia Access’.

What Apex Predaor does so well, is mixing the industrial parts and Voivod/Frost orientated riffs much more naturally this time. It’s as if the songs just wrote themselves. They sound diverse yet not overly contrived. The best examples being the albums highlight ‘Hierarchies’ or the entirely slow paced and very creepy ‘Dear Slum Landlord’.

Also the highly threatening industrial opening title track is perhaps their beste since ‘Evolved as One’. What an atmosphere! Again present throughout the album are the staple vocals: grunts, screams, incidental punk orientated clean vocals and layered ‘Gregorian chants’ the band had been known for the last decades with Barney and Mitch sharing vocals. And wondering what I mean about the Celtic Frost orientated riffs? Try closer ‘Adversarial / Copulating Snakes’. I need not say more, do I?

Apex Predator is another excellent Napalm Death album and far from surprising if you are actually familiar with their backcatalogue and not just looking at the band with your horse blinkers still on (craving either Scum or Harmony Corruption part two).

What is also so great about it, is that there are some real new classic individual songs to be found. ‘Smash a Single Digit’, ‘How the Years Condemn’ and especially ‘Hierarchies’ could easily become staple songs if the fans want more than the eighties classics.