Napalm Death
Smear Campaign

October 2006
Released: 2006, Century Media
Rating: 4.0/5
Reviewer: Arto Lehtinen

Holy fucking shit! These grindcore veterans never slow down and give up in extremity and brutality. The four piece slams the audience and listener with a total insane CD of 16 neck and brone crushing terrorizing tunes. The whole grinding torment is kicked off by a weird sounding intro, but immediately followed by “Sink Fast, Let Go” where Barney Greenway literally screams his lungs out. The band hammers out each song with the tremendous speed, brutality and above all, tightly controlled chaotik noise terror through all 16 songs. Sonic mayhemmic destruction of distortion by Napalm Death is the immortal trademark in their ferocious grind core and even death metal approach. What can you expect from a band like Napalm Death? Definitely not any love metal although Anneke Van Giersbergen from The Gathering does some background vocals or actually speeches for both the opening intro and “In Defence” in the Napalm Death way. The concluding title track “Smear Campaign” sounds totally different compared to the other stuff as it has more dismal industrial melancholic feelings. Napalm Death once again focus on healing the world and its problems and troubles and the mission hasn’t changed during these years. Instead it has gotten much stronger as the members are getting older. Napalm Death is Napalm Death they won’t change or turn the world upside down, but ND stands for the brutal and extreme grindcore in its finest way. SMEAR CAMPAIGN is evidence of this.