Review: Melvins With Napalm Death ‘Savage Imperial Death March’
There is a good chance, if you are reading this, that neither Melvins nor Napalm Death need an introduction. Despite being on opposite ends of the underground heavy music spectrum, they are both groundbreaking originators, with Melvins having a significant role in kicking off the grunge, sludge, and noise-rock genres, while grindcore was essentially created by Napalm Death.
The two extreme music pioneers share a mutual respect and have toured together multiple times, so the idea of a collaboration felt both inevitable and long overdue. Melvins figureheads, guitarist, vocalist, and riff lord Buzz Osborne and drummer Dale Crover, are joined by Napalm Death’s bassist Shane Embury, vocalist Barney Greenway, and guitarist John Cooke to deliver the inevitably heavy, crushing, bizarre mind-melt that is Savage Imperial Death March.
If there is a better album-opening song title this year than Tossing Coins Into The Fountains Of Fuck, I have not encountered it thus far. Sounding exactly like its name and the players involved, it features ample amounts of patented Buzz riffage, along with plenty of wicked shred flourishes from him and Cooke. All of this is propelled by Crover’s uncanny ability to meld caveman bashing with his octopus-limbed sense of rhythm. Embury fits right in the pocket as his weighty, rumbling low-end serves as a great complement. Not surprisingly, Barney sounds like Barney, with his aggressive, distorted, throaty growl having no problem finding his place amid the ruckus.
Next up, Some Kind Of Antichrist begins life as a bouncy, chugging, Melvins-y affair, but with some pinch harmonics and peculiar noise squalls sprinkled in for good measure. Vocally, Buzz is in bellow mode, but interestingly, the song finds Barney playing the role of hype man. The Flavor Flav to Buzz’s Chuck D, if you will. Around the six-minute mark, we find ourselves descending into a deluge of cymbal crashes and weird-ass noises, including ubiquitous electronic bleeps that feed directly into Awful Handwriting. It’s a thumping, noisy affair that finds Barney on one, growling unintelligibly while also engaging in some insane, psychedelic call-and-response, distorted while being semi-buried in the cacophony of noises and squalls.
Nine Days Of Rain is certainly a song title I am confident all these musicians can relate to, since one band is from Western Washington and the other from Birmingham, England. This track boasts a more downcast, trippy vibe, with the two vocalists alternately barking or singing together, recalling, for this reviewer, Melvins’ work with Big Business. The crisp, mid-tempo, tasteful pummeling of the drums and the chest-rattling rumble of the bass lock it all down, which allows the guitarists the opportunity to engage in all sorts of cool stuff, including strange twinkling, distorted lead wails, and eccentric shred.
They can spin off the rails at any time and plummet into a sea of unconventional noise…
The menacing Rip The God invades the consciousness with some mean guitar squalls and filthy, growling bass, as the track quickly reveals itself to be a Melvins-style creepy crawl. Barney sounds as brutal as ever, and the tones wrangled out of the guitars are as massive and dirty as anything I’ve heard all year.
Switching gears slightly, Stealing Horses is a charging affair, complete with all sorts of odd vocal stylings, riffs and shred for days. We go out strange with the penultimate Comparison Is The Thief Of Joy, an instrumental that features all sorts of quirky noises and synth, anchored by cymbal crashes and rolling fills landing at the exact moments for maximum impact.
Closer, Death Hour, owns one of the record’s heaviest riffs, which teases the idea that the album will finish with an emphatic crusher. However, this is Melvins we’re talking about, and no matter who may be joining them, the fact that they can spin off the rails at any time and plummet into a sea of unconventional noise can never be discounted. Nor can a synth nod to Van Halen’s cringeworthy hit Jump from 1984, but fittingly, this is how Savage Imperial Death March ends.
Not surprisingly, there is a lot to digest with this record, but that is often the case with both Melvins and Napalm Death. In the decades I’ve been listening to these bands, it is not unusual for me to spin a release multiple times to fully absorb it, and that was the case here. Additionally, I mostly listened to it with headphones on as I tried to catch all the aural wackiness thrown at me. Interestingly, though, this record sonically fell more in line with a Melvins record than a Napalm Death release.
As much as I enjoyed it, I admit I was mildly disappointed they didn’t at least dip their toes further into Napalm Death territory, as it would have been cool to hear Dale and Osborne launch into grindcore. That said, it’s an album you didn’t know you always wanted but now can’t live without, that’s complete with amazing album artwork from Buzz’s wife, Mackie Osborne, to boot. Enthusiastically recommended.
Label: Ipecac Recordings
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Napalm Death: Official | Facebook | Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram
