NAPALM DEATH — Words From the Exit Wound (review)

NAPALM DEATH — Words From the Exit Wound album cover Album · 1998 · Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
UMUR
"Words From the Exit Wound" is the 8th full-length studio album by UK death metal/grindcore act Napalm Death. The album was released through Earache Records in October 1998. It´s the successor to "Inside the Torn Apart" from 1997 and features the same lineup as the predecessor.

Napalm Death chose Colin Richardson as producer again and as a result the sound production is clear, professional, and slightly too polished to suit Napalm Death´s sound. When that is said "Words From the Exit Wound" is slightly more raw sounding than "Inside the Torn Apart (1997)" and objectively seen it´s a very well produced release.

The music on the album is death metal/grindcore and as always it sounds unmistakably like Napalm Death. Mark "Barney" Greenway´s raw growling/barking vocals are dominant as usual. The music alternates between mid- to fast paced death metal and blasting grindcore parts. "Inside the Torn Apart (1997)" featured very few blast beats but this one features a few more. Still the overall sound is a long way from the more blast beat dominant/grindcore oriented Napalm Death releases. They still play lots of dissonant ominous sounding chords which at times give the music a nice touch of post-apocalyptic despair. A track like "Next of Kin to Chaos" profits greatly from that feature. I can´t help to sense that the songs generally don´t seem that inspired though and not many of them stand out from the pack. The general quality of the compositions is high enough and the album is enjoyable while it plays but to my ears this is overall one of the weaker efforts by the band.

A "weak" Napalm Death release doesn´t mean it´s a weak album in the context of the death metal/grindcore scene as a whole though. "Words From the Exit Wound" is still a solid release by Napalm Death and to my ears it´s a step in the right more grindcore oriented direction compared to the two more groove metal oriented releases which preceded it. In that respect it´s a sort of transition album between the band´s groove oriented mid-90s death metal releases ("Diatribes (1996)" and "Inside the Torn Apart (1997)") and their post-2000 grindcore/death metal releases (from "Enemy of the Music Business (2000)" onwards). A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.
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