Review of the Album "Diatribes" by British Death Metal Band Napalm Death

Diatribes is the only Napalm Death album released in the decade of the 1990’s that I have not yet reviewed until now. After a brief stint away from the heavy metal genre, I have made my triumphant return to listening to extreme heavy metal, especially that which comes from the United Kingdom.

The first song called Greed Killing is about human nature’s unfortunate flaw of deep seated anger and mistrust for others as they resort to violence at any cost. The vocals sound like a rougher version of Johan Liiva in a way. Napalm Death usually does not use guitar solos but for the avid extreme metal fan, these guys can provide solid entertainment in their albums. This is the first album review that I write since Wishmaster by Nightwish.

Especially this album is about heavy topics and this is the case with the song Glimpse Into Genocide. Throughout history, emotions of leaders have gotten so high that it has driven them over the edge and they have committed crimes too horrible to imagine. Cursed to Crawl has some harsh regular shouts as the bass can be clearly heard. This is not something that we hear from this band regularly but it is an interesting contrast to what they usually offer. Cold Forgiveness is a song that addresses the emotion of anger and the vocals are softer for a while as the song sounds Gothic and industrial in nature. It also has that atmospheric feel to it as well. My Own Worst Enemy is a song that is about what happens when a person sabotages themselves because they use treachery to try and get ahead in life. Just Rewards is basically a song about living for a moment and feeling like you deserve a reward of some sort. Where is the right place and time for living? Life is just a gift that all of us should not take for granted. Dogma is a song that once again criticizes life as not being some innocent experience and just a painful one at best. Life can sometimes be painful yes, but there is also much joy in life as well. It is all about perspective. Take the Strain is a catchy song about society being expected to follow the orders of the established political elite but these leaders will let them down. Diatribes is a song about the flawed democratic process in various countries especially the United States that has a flawed, outdated Electoral College that sold out the public but anyway, the song is a useful one to listen to in order to understand the frustrations that people go through. Placate, sedate, eradicate makes reference to the flaws that are in movies today and the fact that in countries, it is such that the population becomes numb to the things that are happening around them. Diatribes ends with the song called Corrosive Elements and this album may not be better than the previous one but I have made my triumphant and successful return to the heavy metal world and let us rock on into an awesome weekend!