Live Review: Napalm Death, Carcass, Extortion

Soundworks touring has been kicking goals lately (case in point, the recent Goatwhore/Psycroptic run) but getting Carcass and Napalm Death together, and having Extortion serve as the Aussie warm-up band, is next level. A grind freak’s wet dream, the Hi-Fi is filled out early with young and old waiting for what seems like the best bill they’ll see come through Australia this year. 

As though to prove fans haven’t worked this thing up to be something much bigger than it is, Extortion come out and blaze through a half-hour set. Brimming with steely unease, the Perth power-violence powerhouse is as tight as ever as they burn through an increasingly outstanding catalogue.

Carcass are up next and looking to inject some melody into the proceedings. Vocalist/bassist Jeff Walker is also hoping to get in some of his hilarious, curmudgeonly one-liners as well. On both accounts they succeed. Hitting the moody mid-tempo cuts from 2013’s Surgical Steel, like Captive Bolt Pistol, the band gets a big response. But it’s nothing compared to that riff from Corporal Jigsore Quandary, which damn near sends the room mental. Then, as they seem to always do, Jeff and the lads insist on playing Keep On Rotting In The Free World. Why? Nobody knows.

It’s hard to understand Napalm Death. They really don’t make any sense when you consider that they’ve been playing some of the fastest music in the world for what’s going on 30-odd years without slowing down, figuratively or literally, bar a brief period in the late ‘90s. And here they are tonight, missing guitarist Mitch Harris, whose absence from the band has never been fully explained, but still absolutely, absolutely killing it.

The last time Napalm rolled into town, on the back of 2008’s gut-bustingly excellent Time Waits For No Slave record, they weren’t game to mix things up and play numbers like Omnipresent Knife In Your Back, numbers that showcase extremity set by mood, rather than speed. Tonight though, they’re playing the mid-tempo weirdo Dear Slum Landlord… and Everyday Pox, which has John Zorn’s saxophone taking over the P.A. It’s not just that there aren’t many bands who can maintain that subtle, but important, progression over the years; it’s that it seems bloody impossible for any band to do it. But here are Napalm, doing it. Twenty-five-plus years of creativity and fury on display, the band is ripping through Apex Predator - Easy Meat cuts like Cesspits and Adversarial/Copulating Snakes that get the crowd more animated than Scum. It would be something you’d probably want to stand back and marvel at, if you could resist the temptation to get into the pit and go fucking mental. Napalm, you bloody legends, don’t ever change.