Listen to the first single from Napalm Death's upcoming album Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism.
Fresh from the announcement of their new album Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism, British grindcore legends Napalm Death have unleashed the record's first single: Backlash Just Because.
“This song in particular really spurred me on when I was writing lyrics for the album overall,” explains frontman Barney Greenway. “It’s raucous and traditional, but also quirky and discordant and ultimately catchy-as-anything in the context of rampaging noise.
“Lyrically it was directed at the spiteful art of creating easy targets and fomenting paranoia and revulsion, which is something that I feel has become de rigueur in very recent times. I really let loose on the more sporadic vocals at the end of the song – it’s a real barkfest at that point. Lovely.”
Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism is due out on September 18 via Century Media Records, with pre-orders officially live now.
Explaining how the full-length – the follow-up to 2015's Apex Predator – Easy Meat – came about, Barney reveals: “The phrase sticking in my mind when I started thinking about the lyrical direction for this album was ‘the other’.
“You could recognise at the time that there was a rapidly growing fear and paranoia being generated about everybody, from migrating people to people with fluid sexuality and this was starting to manifest itself in very antagonistic reactions that you felt were almost verging on violence. Not everybody resorts to such reactions of course, but even the basic lack of understanding can become toxic over time. I’m not saying that this is an entirely new phenomenon, but it has been stoked in recent history by some particularly attack-minded people in more political circles and, as ever, I felt that it would be the natural antidote to endorse basic humanity and solidarity with all.
“The artwork specifically uses a white dove as a centrepiece, which of course is a commonly recognised symbol of peace and cooperation. The dove has been mauled very violently by a sterilising hand and in death appears particularly broken and bloodied. However, through the violence you can see an equality symbol in blood on the chest of the dove, which perhaps demonstrates – visually at least – that equality cuts through in the end. A positive amidst many negatives then, much like the album title itself being a bit of an oxymoron – the celebration of humanity even in the mangling jaws of negativity.”
Listen to Backlash Just Because below:
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