Destruction, massacre, storm, panic! The first words that come to mind as soon as “Strongarm”, the first track of the new, 13^th you may note down, album by the enormous Napalm Death, invades your stereos! Their return after the loss of Jesse Pintado (R.I.P.) makes obvious that Mitch Harris and Shane Embury have become the only composers but nothing has changed from what they’ve been doing during this decade.

So for the fifth time in a row, they treat their grindcore/death metal mixture with extra violence and aggression. The tracks are down to the ground with merciless blast beats, impressive brutal vocals by Barney and screams by Mitch and a mighty, unbeatable wall of strings; truly, massive! They let a lot of hardcore, old thrash but also modern death and black metal influences broaden their sound, all filtered to become Napalm Death. The surprise is still in the quality of their material. These guys are in a great composing shape the last years and show the way once more to all competitors of the extreme metal race. Take just as personal favourites the following: “Feeling Redundant”, “Fallacy Dominion”, “Strongarm”, “Diktat”.

The only problem is that if we expect the strong efforts by the 45-year old lads what will the youngsters do? Still try to become the fastest??? Anyhow, since grindcore is quite heard the latter years, you should check the high standards set by the band that created the genre…