If you were to look up grindcore in a music dictionary, it would say “Napalm Death.” Hailing from Birmingham, England, and formed in 1981, they basically invented the genre. Last night, the founding fathers of brutal metal played Peabody's in support of their most recent album, Time Waits for No Slave.
Napalm Death wasted no time infiltrating the stage and roaring through classics and rarities like “Unchallenged Hate,” “Suffer the Children," “It’s a M.A.N.S. World” and “From Enslavement to Obliteration.”
From the start, it was obvious audience members were restraining themselves from pummeling each other in the intense pit. Frontman Barney Greenway paced deliriously from the back to the front of the stage while the rest of his crew stood fairly stationary. Recent songs like “Silence Is Deafening” and “On the Brink of Extinction” slaughtered the crowd and left them with nothing to do but grasp for air and pray for a moment to breathe.
Napalm Death's passion took an intimate turn when Barney expressed his appreciation for fans' support and his utter disgust for politicians like Dick Cheney. In turn, songs like “Scum,” "You Suffer” and "Life?" were greeted with grins and raised fists.
Bassist Shane Embry had to leave the stage two songs early because of illness, but the band played its entire set. The night wrapped up shortly after the band played its popular cover of the Dead Kennedy’s “Nazi Punks Fuck Off.” —Hannah Verbeuren
