The Code Is Red... Long Live The Code
(Century Media Records)
45:15min
After two impressive studio albums (I’m not counting the two cover releases), the legendary U.K. extreme act is back and it seems that they have really learned a lesson from their previous mistakes as it’s definitively NAPALM stuff that we have here, super fast, intense with lots of dynamics. Barney’s growls / vocal delivery is still the same – and gets somewhat boring as time passed I shall say as he always uses that same monotonous tone and again 15 songs is way too much for an album if you really want to have the majority of the material sticking in your brain. Some are just interchangeable while still sounding interesting. Fave track would be ‘Sold Short’, a type of number in the ‘Idiosyncratic’ vein, totally killer, totally effective main riff, super fast yet controlled drumming (no Mick Harris type of drumming here haha!), simply excellent. Worst tracks, well probably ‘Climate Controllers’, ‘Pledge Yourself To You’ (crappy industrial influences come back to the surface at times) and ‘All Hail The Grey Dawn’, both being built on ridiculous structures / tempos and possessing awful guitar parts. Just like "Enemy…" and "Order…" were, it’s basically heads down action all the way here. One can notice that Jesse Pintado’s absence from this album didn’t affect the band as the remaining members have managed to write enjoyable material as a whole, truth is that Pintado’s input on the band’s material for a good while was unfortunately extremely limited. All in all, this is no disappointment at all in you’re NAPALM addicts.
Laurent Ramadier
• NAPALM DEATH - Scum (Laurent Ramadier (audio side) / Frank Stöver (DVD side))
• NAPALM DEATH - Apex Predator - Easy Meat (Rafael Bracero)
• NAPALM DEATH - Noise For Music's Sake (Frank Stöver)
• NAPALM DEATH - Utilitarian (Julián “Quarantined” Nuñez)
• NAPALM DEATH - Leaders Not Followers' Part 2 (Roy Kristensen)