Napalm Death are one of the oldest still going extreme metal bands. Formed in 1981 as a hardcore band, they pioneered grindcore in the mid-80s and later included death metal influences in their sound. Even some groove metal influences appeared in the 90s. There are no original members left since 1987 or thereabouts. But Shane, Danny and Barney from the core for a long time. And now they visited the Baroeg again after so many years. The venue sold out well before the gig, so it was pretty crowded on this Friday evening. The club added two support slots to the gig.

The first band was the Dutch Teethgrinder. They have a bit of an undefined style tending more to a punk direction than metal. There is a lot of aggression in. But I find it hard to distinguish actual riffs and the rhythms are quite jittery and fragmentary. It is hard to find the actual flow. Nevertheless they do that with a lot of flair. I didn’t really like it much but somehow it was entertaining to observe.

Disavowed is another Dutch band; I had seen them ages ago, but can’t remember much of it. They play technical, brutal death metal. Lots of fast riffs and lots of blast beats. But the song writing is weak, none of the riffs are actually memorable. The singer makes quite an effort to engage the crowd, even doing some crowdsurfing whilst sings. But it only gets a mild response.

Napalm Death started a bit earlier than planned. Multinational Corporations and Instinct of Survival started off the gig. They didn’t really have a new album out to promote, so what we got is largely a best of set. Touching many of their albums, even Breed to Breathe from their groovy period found a place in the set. Barney was active as ever. Tho his speeches in between songs could have been a bit shorter. Shane was frantically hammering on his bass guitar, and the long-term stand-in guitarist plays the all riffs easily. And Danny brings it all together with his drum work. Tighter than the last time I saw them. Siege of Power was back on the set list. The Anti-cimex cover was neat, though I would have preferred the other song they covered (Game of the arseholes). Two songs from the recently released compilation were included as well: Standardisation and Call that an Option?. I only missed a song from Utopia Banished. But all in all a great gig from a band that is by far not ready to retire or so it seems.