Within a different realm here with once pure "grind", but now death/grind pioneers, Napalm Death is back with in my estimation a technical, diverse, intriguing, illustrious and brutally diverse intense release. They, simply put DOMINATE in respect to the music and the variety. They're incorporating a lot of diversity here on this new one showing that they're still kicking ass even after over 30+ years since they were originally founded! By no way are they putting out material that is repetitious. On 'Apex Predator - Easy Meat', Napalm has technical guitar riffs showing here, some drop down tuning and such original music in all aspects. They've combined some of the "old" sound in respect to the vocals i.e. Barney Greenway showing a change in his style than what he once was and Mitch Harris on background vocal screams. It makes it more listenable with variety.

All 14 tracks dominate! The music, production, vocals and intensity is all there. This is one of my favorite ND releases besides 'Harmony Corruption' and the live album 'Live Corruption' released way back in the 1990. This band is still kicking major butt because they're incorporating many different sounds musically and it's loud as all hell. It's alright that there are no original members since they were founded - Shane Embury on bass is probably the eldest contributor, Barney and Mitch with the band for over 20 years and Danny Herrera took over on drums ever since Mick Harris left the band in 1991. They've really gone through musical evolution over the years, but still reign high as this one exceeded my expectations!

You have tempos here that very from slow, medium, fast then hyper-fast speeds - they're covering it all! These guys especially Mitch and Shane did some great riff writing no doubt - they both made the music highly well conducted as they used a lot more higher end concoctions of technical morbidity musically yet still tuned the guitars it seems lower than D-tuning for this as well as filled the album with precision. There was only I think 1 lead guitar part - the rest just plain obliteration to the eardrums. Mitch and Shane were all over the fretboard here - you get bar chords, tremolo picking riffs and intensity hands down! The vocal variations also make the album very diverse and intriguing. Barney no is not the same man on vocals as he was when he joined. He is yelling mostly while Mitch's backup screams keep the music flowing.

Very well produced album! I liked the fact that they really did cover every musical avenue here when creating the music for this one. They really hit home with their creativity and even though old Napalm is dead and different from what they originally were doing in the earlier days to what they're doing now, I still think that this album is musical perfect in death/grind. Danny isn't as tight on drums than when Mick was with the band, but he's definitely a solid drummer and compliments the bands compositions quite well. Mick was more of a leader type of person when he was with Napalm, but Danny definitely did his part well on this release. He might not be as creative and tight as Mick was, but he's stuck with the band for over 20 years also!

Should you be excited with Napalm's latest? My words are: HELL YES! This band takes all of these musical avenues and turns metal into a whole new avenue with all that makes a perfect score album complete: brutality, originality, diversity and intensity along with a solid production quality. These guys deserve praise with this one because it's I think their best one out since 'Words from the Exit Womb' (1998) was released! They simply annihilate here and there's no doubt that it was by no stretch of chance that they were one of the Billboard's top releases for this year! YouTube this and listen for yourself. Interesting song titles and still yes the politically based lyrical concepts haven't escaped them! Get the album if you want to hear some top metal from this year so far. This one destroys!

Rating: 10 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Death8699
02/27/2015 16:33