Napalm Death - The Code Is Red...Long Live The Code (2005)

For almost two dozen years, heavy metal innovators Napalm Death have delivered the goods unlike any other band. These guys wrote the fuckin' blueprint for extreme metal, Napalm Death cranking out some of the most brutal, unrelenting and uncompromising music that your ears will ever experience. There's nothing subtle about the Napalm Death approach – the band's signature sonic assault could be more closely compared to a lead pipe colliding with your skull rather than the stiletto stuck between your ribs.

There's also little about The Code Is Red...Long Live The Code that will appeal to a mass audience bottle-fed whitebread "nu-metal" and "modern rock" by MTV and corporate radio. Make no doubt, Napalm Death is a cult band, deservedly so, and methinks that the band would have it no other way. Beneath the din and glorious noise of The Code Is Red...Long Live The Code is a spectacular worldview, a misanthropic perspective that is as brutally honest as the music is honestly brutal. With lyrics penned by vocalist Barney Greenway, who's demon-on-acid vocals have been imitated by every lesser death metal frontman for decades now, the album tackles such heady subject matter as the war in Iraq, American imperialism and economic injustice. With disdain for the current cultural landscape worthy of Artaud, Greenway's blistering lyrical attacks on political hypocrisy are as intelligent and informed as they are menacing.

Of course, deciphering he lyrics from Greenway's rabid delivery is difficult enough a chore, even more so when combined with Napalm Death's monster mix of death metal, hardcore punk and industrial-strength bluster. Guitarist Mitch Harris wields his guitar much the same way that a Viking warrior would swing his battleaxe – with strength and deadly accuracy. It's the explosive rhythm section of bassist Shane Embury and drummer Danny Herrera that serve as the band's backbone, however, with rapid-fire drumbeats and bludgeoning basslines supporting Greenway's manic vocals and driving each song to the edge of insanity.

The Code Is Red...Long Live The Code brings in some guest vocalists to thrash around with the band, notably Jamey Jasta of Hatebreed, Jeff Walker of Carcass and former Dead Kennedys' frontman Jello Biafra. Biafra's contribution to "The Great And The Good" is as close to a duet as you're likely to hear on a Napalm Death album. Intertwining his distinctive vocals alongside Greenway's, Biafra manages to move the song from the band's usual scorched earth delivery into the realm of something really nightmarish. Napalm Death defined the "grindcore" genre a generation ago, and longtime fanatics of the sound will not be disappointed by The Code Is Red...Long Live The Code. There's still a lot of life left in these old dogs; with its 13th album, Napalm Death has effectively captured the sound of the coming cultural Armageddon...eerie, even by the standards of extreme music. (Century Media Records)

(Click on the CD cover to buy The Code Is Red... from Amazon.com)