NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert has become a pop-cultural staple of the internet era, a rite of passage for hot up-and-comers, a venue for the mega-stars to drop in and play in an intimate setting – like when Bono and the Edge swung by to rework U2 classics for acoustic guitar.
Taylor Swift has played one, as has Dua Lipa. The Wu-Tang Clan, IDLES, BTS, Alicia Keys, and the Foo Fighters have all done their bit. PinkPantheress played her first show without Auto-Tune on it.
But NPR Music broke new ground today; it just broadcast it’s most extreme performance ever, welcoming UK grindcore pioneers Napalm Death to the studio, to pitch up in support of public access broadcasting, and to maybe introduce some people to the restorative magic of the blast beat, brutal riffs, death growls and screams.
There was no stagediving. But then there was no stage, no wedge monitors to leap from. This, after all, is an office. But frontman Barney Greenway, guitarist/vocalist John Cooke, drummer Danny Herrera and touring bassist Matt Sheridan made themselves at home, and did what they always do, tore the place apart, and were nice about it, too.
“We are Napalm Death, for the uninitiated, just in case you might be wondering,” says Greenway, addressing the crowd out of shot. “So welcome one and all. Nice to see you. Let me say we are here to heartily support public access broadcasting. Unfortunately, it is under attack from all sides, in the UK as well as over here. And we have to take care of it – it’s precious. It has to be preserved.”
Greenway has given public access radio some iconic moments over the years, like when he gave the current UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, a lesson in death metal vocals.
Greenway’s vocal style is straight from the gut, a leonine roar in the classic death metal style. He made his full-length Napalm Death debut on 1990’s Harmony Corruption, when the Birmingham grind institution explored a more death metal direction under the watch of legendary producer Scott Burns at Morrisound Studios, in Florida. In this NPR segment Greenway is kind of like the MGM lion in a Crass T-shirt.
But public access radio has been good to Napalm Death, too. It has been good to grindcore. The late BBC Radio One DJ John Peel was an early champion. Napalm Death recorded a number of sessions that were later compiled in The Peel Sessions. And there were others; Carcass, Extreme Noise Terror, and Bolt Thrower all tracked at the Beeb (and there were other grind-adjacent sessions with Unseen Terror and others – check out the 2009 compilation Grind Madness At The BBC).
Today, Napalm Death brought the old classics to NPR, opening with Instinct Of Survival, the Side One classic from their 1987 debut LP, Scum, dropping the title track later in the set before closing with their one-second ur-grind track, You Suffer.
They’d call that something silly like "micro-grind" these days but back then it was just grindcore, and it was calling card that made Napalm Death notorious.
But not everything was head-down-and-blast.
“This next little ditty perhaps approaches the merest hint of musical beauty,” says Greenway, introducing Amoral from 2020’s Throes Of Joy In The Jaws Of Defeatism. Before pausing to add another qualifier: “The merest hint!”
He was as good as his word. Check it out at the top of the page.
And you can catch Napalm Death at this year's ArcTanGent Festival on 21 August. See the Napalm Death for full tour dates.
