9/01/10
Time Waits for No Slave.
After having my laptop searched for “things that are illegal in Canada” at Ottawa Airport, I rode an Air Canada bird into London on the third day of this decade. A popular fairy tale tells us that things can rise on the third day. However the temperature in London had failed to rise since I was last there.
That first week of January was the biggest freeze in the UK since the 1960’s. Parts of Scotland were cut off by road and rail from the rest of the UK. The Eurostar was cancelled and Gatwick Airport was shut for multiple days. Businesses and schools throughout the UK closed their doors.
Unuse to large snow falls, the infrastructure in London failed. Trains ceased to run into central London. As a consequence people didn’t go to work and people didn’t come into the centre. I walked along the Thames, from opposite the houses of parliament to London Bridge, and passed only a handful of people. I was the only person in the Borough Market and I had my pick of seats on the tube in peak hour. Have you ever seen the start of that movie 28 Days Later? This was exactly the same – except there was slightly more snow and slightly less flesh eating zombies… not even 3-day ripened zombie Jesus.
So it was with a fair amount of doubt that I tubed over to Euston train station, the following Saturday. What were the chances of a train to Wolverhampton leaving the platform in the snow?
The train did get away though, and I’ve got to say I’m glad that I didn’t have to exit at Rugby. There was a g0d d@mn blizzard falling when the train paused there. Whilst not under the same blizzard conditions, it was a snow capped Wolverhampton that I arrived into mid-morning. After getting used to the scale of cities like London and Chicago, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself at my hotel door within a 100m walk from the train station. The hotel took my backpack while I strolled the town. I don’t know what Wolves usually looks like, but those old buildings under a layer of snow looked pretty cool.
The centre of Wolverhampton is pretty small. There is a university, a pedestrian shopping mall and lots and lots of pubs. I had my priorities straight and headed directly to the town’s brewery, Banks Brewery – but there wasn’t a place to buy a beer there. Disappointed and thirst unquenched, I continued out of the centre, to the town’s park which rivals the centre of town for size. The park was a blanket of white. If it wasn’t for the nice ducks I wouldn’t have known where the park started and the lake ended. Except for a duck sized opening, the frozen lake was covered by snow and so it looked like the rest of the park.
After consulting the ducks for my next move, I headed back through town and grabbed some sausage and mash at one of the many, many pubs in town. The Wolverhampton prices were a refreshing change from London. I finished my lunch and headed next door for a pint with the professional Saturday afternoon drinkers. This was a real English pub with serious drinkers. It wasn’t one of those chain pubs full of tourists and the exact same menu as the place next door.
I rolled into Wulfrun Civic Hall shortly after doors opened for Napalm’s hometown (well almost) gig. With Wolverhampton being within 20 minutes of Napalm’s hometown of Birmingham, I’m going to call this one a hometown gig. Wulfrun Civic Hall looks like it sounds – it’s a town hall. I didn’t know whether to move a motion to save the clock tower, or break my neck to some grindcore.
For those who came in late (and I came in later than a lot), Napalm Death are pioneers of grindcore. They’ve been merging the sounds of crust punk and death metal for nearly as long as I’ve been alive. And I’m old, dude.
With the local brew, Banks, in hand, I made my way to the merch tables in the foyer of Wulfrun Hall. Just where can you wear a band shirt that has “NO FUCKING SLAVE” covering the back? Is that like something you wear to the annual, extended-family Xmas dinner? Or maybe it’s more appropriate for that work social do that’s coming up. I think I’ll save mine for my nephew’s baptism.
The first 3 bands for the evening, Nekkrosis, Speed Theory and Warlord, were pretty serviceable metal bands from the north of England. If you wanted to have a chat with Napalm’s bass player, Shane Embury, you could have found him in the bar during the Warlord set.
The next band up for the evening, snotty hardcore punkers, the Rotted, put only a highly entertaining set. The vocalist made the pit perform a “congo of death” (which turned out to be just a regular congo line performed to a punk tempo). He also appeared to be delivering a serious speech about knowing your limitations. Was this going to be anti drugs song? No – the song’s message was that when you hit your late twenties, it’s time to give up naked tour bus surfing. Like I said, it was a fun set.
The last support for the evening was the black metal-ish, Anaal Nathrakh. The crowd were definitely up for them. I thought it was pretty interesting set and the pit was severe enough to leave a bloodied bathroom afterwards.
It was a different type of a pit. It was loose and the people in it were loose. The room in the pit allowed momentum to be built up between clashes. I saw multiple blood noses leave the front during both Anaal and Napalm’s sets. There was no way I was getting anywhere near that drunken, violent mess.
After 5 support acts, the punters were more than ready for Napalm. They certainly were drunk enough. Napalm have a very punk ethic. Their light show is minimal. There aren’t any theatrics or gimmicks. So the lads wandered out and dived straight into Strong Arm from their latest album, Time Waits for No Slave. Napalm’s vocalist, Barney, slipped over 3 times during first song. I’ve seen Napalm once before (in Japan of all places!), and Barney is an excellently bad dancer. He’s got all this energy that he just can’t get out of his body. He’s like a little kid. A really angry grindcore kid.
The biggest difference between the two Napalm gigs that I’ve seen is in the crowd. It is worth seeing any aggressive band in Japan. Japan don’t do aggression like we smelly westerners. They treat metal as a chance to jump up and down, run around and have a party. I walked straight through the Japanese “pit” to get to the front for a photo. In contrast, I wasn’t willing to get anywhere near the mob in Wolverhampton.
The internet has brought positive and negatives to underground music. It’s doubtful I would have a Napalm recording without the internets and I definitely wouldn’t have been able to tee up seeing them in Tokyo and Wolverhampton. The internet means I can find interesting music made anywhere around the world – even if radio doesn’t play the band, CD stores don’t stock the album and record companies don’t sign the artist.
But the internet has homogenised the geography of the underground. Bands and fans can access all the bands in the world on their computrons. So there are no longer massive differences in the sound of underground bands in one part of the world compared to another. There are no longer many scenes determined by geography. Similarly the fans at a band’s gig tend to look similar all around the world…. But there still are differences – definitely in Japan and there were some pretty cool differences here at Wulfrun’s Civic Hall.
Napalm pioneered the grindcore sound by melding snotty, politically charged crust punk with early death metal. Their crowd in Wulfrun Hall reflected this. Sure most of the punters are wearing death metal or hardcore band t-shirts, but there were a bunch of old school crust punks, wearing thick check shirts with leather jackets. It is nice to have a more unique vibe going on. In Wolves, I felt like I was at a local show – except that this local band is the pioneer of an entire genre. This band travels the world bringing a honed brand of deathgrind with a punky enthusiasm and sincerity wherever it lays its hat.
Part of any Napalm show is some sincere ranting from vocalist, Barney. I can’t stand many bands forcing their uniformed, self important views down my throat. But whilst I don’t agree with everything Napalm are about, they certainly are far more informed and intelligent than your John Butler’s and far less ego tripping than your Bono’s. Napalm came out of the whole leftist crust punk scene and their politics, while matured and progressed, reflect this. I can get behind pretty much everything Barney says onstage but I find myself cringing at the political correctness in some of his interviews.
Tonight’s topics included an anti-religion rant before the band assaulted us with Brink of Extinction, and an anti-torture rant before they launched into Life and Limb. Barney had me onboard. Who’s gonna argue with an anti-torture message – I mean apart from the US government and the complicit UK and Oz governments.
Having over 25 years of grind in the bank, Napalm pummelled out such seminal works as Scum and Suffer the Children. Napalm have gone through several phases in their career, and consequently there is far more variety in their set than the average deathgrind act. For example, Barney’s baritone melodies really shone through on the last couple of tracks from Smear Campaign.
My favourite off the new album, the title track, Time Waits for No Slave was a thumping catharsis – but I reckon Barney probably needs some backup vocals to match the layering of the recorded version. But I guess that is Napalm’s approach – no frills energy over technical perfection.
Napalm closed the hour long set with fan favourite, Siege of Power. An hour is a decent length considering the number of bands on the bill and the length of most of Napalm’s songs (You Suffer clocked in at total length of 1.316 seconds). Barney spent 10 minutes after the show talking with the punters on the barrier. It really was like a local show. You could have a beer with the bass player before the show, and have a chat with the vocalist after the show.
In the Metal Sucks review of Time Waits for No Slave, they described Napalm as “the last decent punk band”. I think this statement rings true. To a modern punk fan’s ears, I’m sure this sounds a million miles away from punk. But the music I heard in Wolves had that early punk sincerity. Whilst the band have definitely honed their abilities and craft over the years, it has never favoured the technical over attitude or energy. You listen to their latest album a few times and tell me if you don’t think that they’re the heaviest punk band on the planet.
After a fry up, and some more strolling around Wolves on the Sunday, the following Monday morning I was taking penguin steps to the train station to avoid falling over on the icy pavements, with 20kg of backpack on my shoulders. The Napalm mission to Wolves had been another triumph. There’s nothing quite like a quiet weekend of grindcore, beers and local pub fayre in the English countryside.
