Two death metal (or I guess “extreme” metal) bands put out cover records close together. Napalm Death and Six Feet Under both put out cover albums…Naplam did it right, SFU failed miserably. I suggest you read the SFU review to get an idea of how to everything wrong. Then read this to see how to do everything right.
The first thing that should be mentioned is the booklet. This is exactly how a covers record should be handled. A nice looking book artwork wise with an introduction from the singer, plus song by song commentary…a bit of background of why the band chose these songs plus information on the bands and albums these songs can be found on. This is everything you could ask for (I suppose you can say lyrics could’ve been included but the rights to reprint lyrics aren’t always easy to acquire).
Musically, this has a definite audience in mind—it will appeal to Napalm Death fans. The band took every song from Discharge to Agnostic Front to Sepultura and made them their own. You can still hear the influence (for example if you don’t know the Agnostic Front song, you can definitely tell it’s something from the New York Hardcore scene), but each song has the definite Napalm Death spin to it. I can honestly say I don’t know most of the original versions of the songs, but the songs I do know I can say that Napalm Death put their own spin on them but did not change them so much that they aren’t recognizable.
The only gripe is minor and that’s that I would’ve preferred a bit more “mainstream” stuff, but perhaps that stuff…I’m thinking thrash like Slayer, Metallica, Anthrax…didn’t really influence the band directly as much as say, Cryptic Slaughter). To me, I listen to this and for the most part it’s a new Napalm Death record…a bit more scattered, but definitely Napalm…tons of energy, aggression, and overall a strong record that will get plenty of use.
Napalm Death fans—pick it up. Fans of the bands being covered that want to hear some interesting takes on their favorites—check it out. Fans of extreme music—this is a worthy investment.
