We took the leap into a destructive and aggressive night of noise and sludge with Napalm Death.
Starting the night off were ‘BRAT’ hailing from New Orleans who came with a punch, walking out to Darude’s ‘Sandstorm’, this band wanted to enlighten us as to what their self-proclaimed genre ‘Bimboviolence’ and my god did they live up to that name. With some incredible gutturals from frontwoman Liz Selfish coupled with some pop frivolity and dance moves reminiscent of the stage presence of Charli XCX which made for a fantastic performance, they were raw, heavy, violent and best of they did all this in a very girlypop manner.
Next up, Full of Hell brought even more noise to decimate Electric Brixton’s speakers, the energy these group of Maryland natives showed the audience their brand of grind-core that had quite a unique couple of idiosyncrasies like some added saxophone, and noises coming from Singer/Frontman Dylan Walker’s board, he even had an extra microphone for some extra distortion to his screams; The anger this band had was impressive, the strength and speed of their playing was something to really admire.
After that, legendary New Orleans sludge metal pioneers, Crowbar, graced the stage; changing up the tone a little bit, these guys took us on a journey through their discography, showing us the unadulterated roughness of their earlier work, to the eerie, dark and ethereal doom of their later work – this is where the crowd really kicked into gear with most of the venue floor becoming one giant mosh-pit, crowd surfers galore and many, many heads banging. The singers gruff Louisiana accent only kept this crowd pumping with hyping up as well as killer doom vocals; again, it was just pure pugnacious instrumentals coupled with a crowd that definitely reciprocated that energy. We even got a little bass playing from Napalm Death’s Shane Embury as an added treat.
Finally Birmingham’s own Napalm Death joined the stage, blasting the audience with a pure cacophony of noise; admitting themselves later in the gig, they aren’t there to play music, they’re there to make noise, and that they did. Singer Mark ‘Barney’ Greenway using every fissure of his vocal chords to run around the stage, and scream his heart out was a sight that only seasoned musicians like these could pull off, with Shane hitting some bass melodies that genuinely shocked. These men are absolute professionals and making synchronized grindcore that batters your eardrums as well as your body with its vibrations, the pit got crazier, the crowd surfers more abundant, it was not a safe place to be if you weren’t a fan of this music.
The peak of this show was when Greenway delivered a socio-political speech about loving thy neighbour no matter their background, to which made him segway in their hit ‘Suffer The Children’ which turned the venue upside down; everyone was banging their head, the pit got bigger and far more crowd surfers were coming over that front barrier. The band did not relent in giving London the grind core they wanted, and in our eyes they went above and beyond to prove to everyone their veteran status.
Words and Photos: Ben Blisset
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