Napalm Death

Napalm Death announce first album in 5 years, 'Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism'

Napalm Death
photo by Gobinder Jhitta

Back in February, heavy music legends Napalm Death released their first new song in four years, “Logic Ravaged by Brute Force,” backed by a cover of Sonic Youth’s “White Kross.” now they’ve announced a new album — their first since 2015’s great Apex Predator – Easy Meat — which doesn’t include either of those songs, but which does include 12 other new ones. It’s called Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism. The first single is due July 24 and pre-orders will become available that day too. The album drops September 18 via Century Media.

Frontman Mark ‘Barney’ Greenway says:

The phrase sticking in my mind when I started thinking about the lyrical direction for this album was ‘the other.’ You could recognise at the time that there was a rapidly growing fear and paranoia being generated about everybody, from migrating people to people with fluid sexuality and this was starting to manifest itself in very antagonistic reactions that you felt were almost verging on violence. Not everybody resorts to such reactions of course, but even the basic lack of understanding can become toxic over time. I’m not saying that this is an entirely new phenomenon, but it has been stoked in recent history by some particularly attack-minded people in more political circles and, as ever, I felt that it would be the natural antidote to endorse basic humanity and solidarity with all.

The artwork specifically uses a white dove as a centrepiece, which of course is a commonly recognised symbol of peace and cooperation. The dove has been mauled very violently by a sterilising hand and in death appears particularly broken and bloodied. However, through the violence you can see an equality symbol in blood on the chest of the dove, which perhaps demonstrates – visually at least – that equality cuts through in the end. A positive amidst many negatives then, much like the album title itself being a bit of an oxymoron – the celebration of humanity even in the mangling jaws of negativity.

Check out the artwork and tracklist and stream “Logic Ravaged by Brute Force” and the Sonic Youth cover below.

Napalm Death

Tracklist
1. F**k the Factoid
2. Backlash Just Because
3. That Curse of Being in Thrall
4. Contagion
5. Joie De Ne Pas Vivre
6. Invigorating Clutch
7. Zero Gravitas Chamber
8. Fluxing of the Muscle
9. Amoral
10. Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism
11. Acting in Gouged Faith
12. A Bellyful of Salt and Spleen

Speaking of Sonic Youth, check out our Sonic Youth album guide below.

Sonic Youth Album Guide

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