Live Review: Napalm Death, Carcass, Extortion

Despite being third on the bill, a large, feisty mob had assembled for Melburnian misanthropes Extortion. Most impressive was how clean this brutally efficient four-piece were. Grindcore can sometimes get a bit fuzzy around the gills, but every beat, every note Extortion delivered was nailed down with immaculate precision. As just reward, Napalm Death’s vocalist Mark “Barney” Greenway joined them onstage to rant oblique missives over their juddering climax.

Tonight’s crowd might’ve won the award for toughest looking horde that’s ever gathered in Perth’s CBD, with extreme examples of facial hair everywhere you turned. The atmosphere was welcoming though as the unrepentantly old-school crowd was enthusiastic, well informed and not too cool to rock. It suited Carcass to a tee, as despite running a fierce gamut from wanton Neanderthal grindcore to fetid death metal, the warmth of the band towards the audience was undeniable. How many bands do you know who share their rider with the front row? No matter how cruel or sick perverse filth bombs such as Corporal Jigsore Quandary or Buried Dreams were, or how hard Jeff Walker’s gaze penetrated to the back of the room, Carcass gave the impression of four salt of the earth English blokes you’d be happy to have a few jars of cider with.

To witness Napalm Death’s music live is not only to absorb it at its most visceral and confrontational; it’s to realise the full force of the band’s collective personality and appreciate Greenway’s under-celebrated intelligence.  It’s something that is occasionally lost in the cacophony, but the rage that drives the likes of Suffer The Children or Cesspits is based on real world tragedies, aligning ND alongside folkies such as Billy Bragg as the last of the great British protest songwriters.

Whilst there was plenty of older material, recent cuts like the eviscerating Smash A Single Digit confirmed that Apex Predator – Easy Meat may be Napalm Death’s best album in years. Tonight’s performance was as severe and uncompromising as ever and Greenway reliably Ian Curtis-esque, staggering about the stage and flailing his arms utterly lost in the music. After meditating over mankind’s history of fascism, slavery, cultural dispossession, religious extremism, oppression and so on over an hour’s worth of unadulterated musical violence it became obvious that if our crazy uncle Barney seems a bit unhinged, it’s only because he cares.