Napalm Death are a national institution, maybe a national treasure. How many other grindcore bands does yer gran not only know the name of but can make a fair stab at describing what they sound like (‘the nice man goes “groahhhhhhhhh” and the songs sound like someone pushing over a trashcan’). Over forty-one years they have built a reputation through hard graft and a no compromise attitude. Their mammoth European trek that was going to keep them occupied for most of the first half of this year was pulled by a promoter unsure how to navigate the different covid regulations still in place across the continent. Instead of being downhearted they declared bugger that for a game of soldiers, asked Raging Speedhorn if they fancied coming out to play and booked a UK tour.
Read MoreAs Douglas Adams once wrote “We have normality. I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can't cope with is therefore your own problem”. This is Manchester’s first Metal show since the so-called Freedom Day. It falls to this Slam Metal package tour, topped by party slam uberlords Party Cannon, to, well, bring the party. For the uneducated Slam Metal is Death Metal’s feral younger sibling. Whereas Death Metal can be reserved and sophisticated when it wants to be, Slam is a puerile art form that reveals in being uncouth and unsanitised.
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