Album Review: Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism by Napalm Death

The pioneering grindcore outfit's 16th long-player and the follow-up to 2015's unrelenting Apex Predator - Easy Meat, the aptly titled Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism is a sonic cudgel swung with extreme prejudice into the face of the worst that humanity has to offer. Napalm Death is one of the few extreme metal acts to consistently eschew the generalized nihilism of the genre in favor of a more humanistic approach, at least lyrically. As hell-bent on exposing society's ills as it is removing the vertebrae from your neck, the generous 15-song set delivers a potent and whiplash-inducing barrage of death metal, hardcore, thrash, crust punk, and noise rock that bears down on its quarry with raptor-like acuity.

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Over three decades into their career, grindcore torchbearers Napalm Death still mine and expose the depths of humanity in its true, savage form. Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, the band's sixteenth studio LP and first since 2015's behemoth Apex Predator – Easy Meat, is another solid addition to their brutal catalogue. Napalm Death's unmistakable aggression is kept dynamic through rampant drums and guitars and fierce screams, barks and otherworldly chants.

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Napalm Death's screeds against society's ills have always had a prophetic feel to them. And yet, while they have been fighting against the dangers of capitalism and social injustice since the height of Thatcher's reign, the Brummie grindstitution have never come across preachy in their efforts to warn us of the precipice humanity has been recklessly dangling from for decades. As world economies begin to enter a second recession in just over ten years due to an insidious disease that's currently running roughshod through us, some might say we've finally overshot said precipice and are on a rapid descent to a cataclysmic fall - and perhaps we should've listened harder to such screamed warnings.

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