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| Photo by Gobinder Jhitta |
British Grindcore godfathers Napalm Death are undisputed legends in the global Metal scene, but it can be said with all due admiration and respect that they’re not the what the ever-loving fuck was that? noise innovators they once were. Now, that statement isn’t meant to suggest the group somehow lost a step during its 45(!)-year journey. Rather, it shows that the world somehow caught up to them while the fellas were still alive to experience well-earned accolades and see others follow their blastbeat-laden blueprint.
That said, there was nothing — nothing — as crazily inventive and incendiary as Napalm Death circa 1987 … and the proof is in the Peel Session pudding.
In September of that year, the quartet recorded a dozen songs (total running time: five minutes and 40 seconds) for its inaugural appearance on famed DJ John Peel’s show on BBC Radio 1 (a session engineered by Mott the Hoople’s Dale Griffin, no less). Depending on one’s musical sensibilities, the recording is either ridiculous or revelatory. Drummer Mick Harris’ whirlwind timekeeping (a charitable word in this context) is punctuated by his high-pitched shrieking, lead growler Lee Dorrian bile-belches his way through lyrics about God knows what, and guitarist Bill Steer unleashes the sonic equivalent of cats attempting to claw their way out of a sealed sack.
Taking all the above into account, it was the bass supplied by 19-year-old Shane Embury that truly sealed the sleazoid deal. A distorted barrage of knife-sharp brutality, the sound that emanated from that bloke’s four strings produced an aesthetic by which all heavy bass performances should be measured. (That’s not hyperbole, dear reader. Just take a listen to the fucking thing.)
Fast-forward to the present, and Embury (now 58) is still moving music a step ahead of the rest of us. In addition to being Napalm Death’s longest-serving participant (no easy feat considering the revolving-door band had lost all its original members by the time its debut album, Scum, was released in 1987), he has spent recent years producing captivating clangs in the decidedly unGrindcore world of experimental Electronica.
Initially conceived during the downtime of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dark Sky Burial finds the Birmingham-based musician creating landscapes infinitely more aligned with the likes of Chris and Cosey than Carcass. More than a mere side gig, the endeavor has already yielded a staggering array of releases and a major tour (last spring’s epic North American jaunt opening for Napalm Death and The Melvins). Most significantly, it has allowed Embury to explore new creative horizons.
“It’s all a very evolutionary experience and something I find inspirational,” he told me earlier this year while catching his breath on the road. “It’s unpredictable and, after years of performing almost the same kind of sets every night, liberating.”
That liberating unpredictability heavily informs the project’s latest outing, The Sacred Neurotic. Released December 12 on the Consouling Sounds label, the nine-track album is the result of a deep collaboration between Embury and his long-time friend Carl Stokes, whose eclectic résumé includes stints with Cancer, cult British act The Groundhogs, and (appropriately enough) Current 93. Storming from the speakers like something from the darkest recesses of the Wax Trax! catalog (or, as a more direct description, like Godflesh’s Streetcleaner mixed with “Born Slippy”-era Underworld and a dash of Depeche Mode), The Sacred Neurotic is a glorious goddamn thing and unquestionably the strongest, hookiest, and most memorable collection of songs from the Industrial/Ambient realm to reach my ears this year.
The Sacred Neurotic’s arrival marks the conclusion of a notably active year for Embury, who also released a solo album, Atonement, in March. Both albums display a clear influence from Coil, the alchemical, occult-informed project founded in 1982 by former Psychic TV members Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson and Jhonn Balance (both sadly deceased).
“I have loved Coil since around 1987, 1988 — countless hours after a pub session or whatever, immersed in their loops,” Embury says. “I feel it’s become embedded in my way of composing, even when I stray into slower tracks with Napalm Death. There are many ways to reinterpret their wheel of influence, I find, and it’s also for my self-satisfaction. I find peace and meaning with the music I make, as I do with Coil and other artists in that loop-based ambience.”
Considering the varied musical palettes of the many artists who have drifted in and out of Napalm Death over the years, Embury’s appreciation for Coil and the like should come as no surprise. Following their respective departures from the band, Napalm Death founder Nic Bullen and drummer Mick Harris resurfaced in the early '90s as the Electronic/Post-Industrial duo Scorn. Scum-era guitarist Justin Broadrick, meanwhile, built a name for himself as part of the menacing, dark, drum machine-driven hellscape known as Godflesh.
For Embury’s part, he was the only Metalhead in attendance to adorn a KMFDM T-shirt when I first encountered him on the New Jersey date on Napalm Death’s 1991 U.S. tour. As perhaps the more learned ears among us have known for ages, there has always been much more driving the Napalm Death machine than extreme Metal for extreme Metal’s sake.
“I think Justin and Nic were very much influenced by Industrial music — Mick, too — when I met them. They got me into SWANS and Test Dept, and Coil followed for me. Then I suppose around 1989 or 1990, we were getting into Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Lead Into Gold, KMFDM, and — for me — Front Line Assembly and Front 242. I tend to love all music, so once I was hooked into Industrial, with the noises and beats, it was full on. I was searching out obscure Industrial music as much as I could.”
(Interestingly, Napalm Death’s earliest Industrial-adjacent moment on record is also one of the group’s least known. In 1989 — right before a major lineup overhaul would lead the band to gradually shift from groundbreaking Grindcore to more traditional Death Metal — the group contributed “Internal Animosity,” a five-minute-plus slab of uncharacteristically midtempo droning more akin to Filth-era SWANS than Napalm’s then-current album, From Enslavement to Obliteration. The track was featured on the rare Pathological Compilation, a genre-blurring hodge-podge of boundary-pushing underground acts released by the U.K.-based label of the same name. Tellingly, other artists on the comp included Silverfish, Godflesh, Terminal Cheesecake … and Coil.)
Naturally, Embury’s already looking forward to the road ahead. In addition to fulfilling tons of live dates already booked for Napalm Death in 2026, he plans to keep moving with Absolute Power, a recurring side project in the vein of classic Metal acts like Scorpions, Judas Priest, and Iron Maiden. Contributors to Absolute Power include Napalm Death’s John Cooke and Mission/Peter Murphy/Tricky veteran Mark Gemini Thwaite.
When asked what else we’ll see and hear from the man in the new year and beyond, he provides an answer that reflects the current state of his artistic impulses quite beautifully:
“Lots of stuff on the horizon … and not the obvious.”
EMAIL JOEL at gaustenbooks@gmail.com
