A year and a half after the previous European tour in support of the Smear Campaign album, Napalm Death were back to the Netherlands once again. And as Barney said, this was the last leg of the Smear Campaign tour, kicking off at this show in Dordrecht.

The German Sardonic were given the honour to open the evening. A band I had never heard of and for good reasons. This is really a redundant band, making a very standard death metal in a rather boring band (which strangely enough goes for many German death metal bands). The short playing time they were given was more than enough.

After one of the three drumkits was removed from the stage and the rest of the gear set up, the US band Warbringer took the stage. This is a young (death) thrash metal bands that listened very well to the well known bay area thrash bands, like Exodus and Testament. Although it can hardly be said that there is any originality in their music, it was delivered with vigour and as such was a good opening band to warm up for the two next bands.

The mighty Suffocation was next. I have never seen these god fathers of brutal death metal on a bad day thus far even when they only had one guitarist they still sounded brutal. This time anyway the band was complete. And starting with a classic like Liege of Inveracity one can wonder how much more brutal can one get. Suffocation played a set comprising mostly of classic tunes like Catatonia, Seeds Of The Suffering, Pierced From Within, Thrones Of Blood mixed with some songs from the latest self-titled album ( Bind Torture Kill, Entrails Of You, Abomination Reborn). Ending with the Despise the Sun song Funeral Inception. Peculiarly enough, the entire Souls to Deny album was skipped as well as Breeding the Spawn. Singer Frank Muller needed to warm up a little in the beginning, but after a song or two this was the Suffocation that we know and like to see. Even though a 45 minute set for this band was too short.

What can one say about the creators of grindcore these days after 27 years and some 15 albums. Napalm Death is still going strong, even when they have only one guitarist left. Much like Suffocation’s singer, Barney also needed to warm up a little and seemed in general to be more relaxed on stage than he used to where he’d run around the entire set like a maniac. The impressive set list was opened by a Smear Campaign song, immediately followed by classic songs, like Instict of Survival, Unchallenged Hate and Suffer the Children. And this mixture of newer songs and older songs was continued throughout, skipping most of the mid-era. A minor defect was the sloppy double bass drumming, but next to that this was a steady gig but I’ve seen them play better before (maybe old age is crawling in). At least during the encore they brought my favourite song I Abstain back into the set. They ended the set with the traditional Dead Kennedys Cover Nazi Punks Fuck Off and Siege of Power

Set list:

• Sink Fast Let Go
• Instinct of Survival
• Unchallenged Hate
• Suffer the Children
• Silence is Deafening
• Fatalist
• Continuing War on Stupidity
• Necessary Evil
• It’s A MANS world
• From Enslavement To Obliteration
• The Code is Red… Long Live the Code
• When All is Said and Done
• Unfit Earth
• Scum
• Life?
• The Kill
• Deceiver
• You Suffer
• Persona Non Grata
• Smear Campaign
  –Encores–
• Discordance (from tape)
• I Abstain
• Mass Appeal Madness
• Nazi Punks Fuck Off
• Siege of Power