Napalm Death live at The Factory, Sydney
“If you’re here for the comedy show, get out of the long line, that’s for Napalm Death. You will die” spruiks the doorman at the Factory Theatre. And he’s probably not wrong, as the stage was barrier free and security were scarce.
With a solid early turnout for openers 12 Guage Rampage, the Factory turned it up for the blue metal trio from the Blue Mountains. Short, fast, loud, that’s what grind is all about, twenty songs in twenty minutes. With no barriers, punters used the stage like a diving board all night, with the first dive being a death defying backflip into the open pit. Unleash The Rage, Dead In A Hot Tin Shed and the brutal rampage of VB Killing Spree rounded out the viciously short set.
Having released the best extreme metal record of the past decade in 2022 in “Hiss” and then promptly losing longtime vocalist Arif Rot who left the band, the Singaporean grind trio Wormrot weren’t about to let that slow them down. The recently recruited Gabriel Dubko of Implore was on vocal duties for this tour, his voice slotting in perfectly.
With the set weighing heavily on cuts from Hiss, Behind Closed Doors, Broken Maze and the shredding Glass Shards cutting all down. The pit, fighting and frothing, front man Gabriel joining the seething masses for the finale.
Forty years of nastiness, longer than this reviewer’s been on this earth, from the grimy streets of Birmingham to the grimy streets of Marrickville, godfathers of grindcore, Napalm Death. Six years since they last graced our shores and with a new record in tow, Napalm Death kicked off earlier than planned, no need for long soundchecks when you play extreme metal.
The pit was relentless, stage divers jumping into the crowd with reckless abandon, with no care as to if someone was there to catch them, several times it was the floor who did the catching.
Narcissus, Contagion, Fuck The Factoid, plenty of tracks from the latest release Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism plus tracks spanning their entire discography. A couple of crust punk covers thrown in with Bad Brains and Dead Kennedys getting the grind treatment.
“If you think I’m drinking lager out of your fuxking shoe you’ve got another thing coming” Barney Greenway informs one optimistic punter. Scum, The Kill, Suffer The Children, more blasts of brutality as Greenway staunches about the stage, pointing a single digit with every scream and yell. The insanely fast You Suffer and blink and you’ll miss it, Dead, bookend a crunchy Smash A Single Digit, John Cooke a mess of dreadlocks on guitar. Closing out one of the best extreme metal tours of the year, to a sold out Factory Theatre, with anti fascist anthem Nazi Punks Fuck Off and with a “F You” to Pauline Hanson, Siege Of Power. No encore, no bullshit, just grindcore and a see you soon.
Words and pictures by Brendan Delavere.
