Customer Reviews

Diatribes

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this album when it first came out and I still listen to it religiously. This album was pretty much the creative apex of ND's career it seems like everything before and after this album just pales in comparison. For most ND fans they find this album to be a turn-off because they actually "experiment" with this album and it has been mistaken by many to be their "mainstream" album....hmm...Mainstream??....just how mainstream is Barney's voice?? do you honestly think it had a real shot of getting into VH1's top ten hits. I think of a band like N'Sync or Papa Roach as mainstream if anyone out there can think of ND as mainstream well you've been sniffing too much glue. So basically you need to get off of your heavy metal highhorse, listen to the best Napalm Death album ever made, and basque in the glory that is DIATRIBES!!!! latem

Jeez-- where does ANYone get off comparing Napalm Death to Emperor and At The Gates? That's like comparing apples to garterbelts.

This album isn't my favorite but it's a solid evolutionary step in the Napalm Death sound. After Utopia Banished & Harmony Corruption they couldn't exactly go back to their old sound... Besides, I think that industrial flavor they mix in with the thrash makes everything pretty interesting. Don't compare it to keyboard-laden black metal bands. Don't even compare it to other ND albums. Just buy it, enjoy it on its own merits, then crank it up really loud and drive through your neighbor's flowerbeds.

sepultura had chaos a.d., dismember had massive killing capacity, entombed had wolverine blues, and napalm death has diatribes. this is very much napalm death's "groove metal years" album, but they at least salvaged some dignity by mixing in some hardcore and creeping industrial elements in order to lend some color to these bouncy songs. and while this material is some of the musically shallowest in the band's discography, they at least hadn't lost their touch for the art of word salad, retaining the white-hot political intensity that makes them so endearing even out of form.

This is a great Napalm Death disc. Very different from anything they ever have done. I loved it when it came out, and til this day, I listen to it. Definitely their most commercially accessable, but still not mainstream by any means.

By the way, although Jon Wiederhorn's assessment of this album in the editorial review is fairly accurate, to dismiss previous releases as novice or amateur, and furthermore to state that Emporer or At The Gates are more brutal than Napalm......let's just say that that guy has no business placing an "editorial" review on this page.

I am a huge Napalm Death fan, and when I first listened to this back in 1996, I was completely in awe. Not because it was very well-produced sound, but also the strong song-structure. I mean who would have thunk it? Napalm Death having a song like "Cursed To Crawl" that resembles Faith No More's genious and may have been a foreshadowing of the Nu-Metal trend of today? This is by no means their most brutal work, but it still remains a great example that Grindcore and other forms of Extreme Music can be open-minded and able to be played on a more Mainstream scale. Great cd. Not to mention lots of energy and great muscianship. Best songs: The Greed Killing, Glimpse Into Genocide, Cursed To Crawl, and the title track.

the first thing that strikes out is the production: it's much better here than in earlier napalm death material. Also, it's a lot more grindcore than some of their earlier stuff.. i.e. makes it easier to listen to if you're not a major fan of 'utopia banished' or 'fear, emptiness,despair'. It's more of an indication of things to come... the perfected formula is in 'inside the torn apart'. But that isn't to say that this isn't a good album. When you consider the enormous amount of rubbish that there is in the extreme metal scene, these guys are clearly the best.. the epitome of metal... if you can, get the coalsce/Napalm death LP as well... i think both of them were released within a few weeks of each other... but be warned, if you were a fan of napalm death's rawer sound, you may be disappointed here (although, I wasn't at all), this CD is has a 'clean' sound to it. But if you liked the 'Death, you'll probably should get this CD anyways.

After being very dissappointed with Napalm's previous cd "Fear, emptiness, despair", when a friend told me they had a new one, I thought : "Napalm is over. They went down the drain with FED. They couln't possibly do better than Harmony Corruption or Utopia Banished, and FED proved it." Boy, was I wrong. The sound was more polished, yes, but not to the point where it took aggression away. The songs had clearly identifiable structures. The riffs were really different for ND, yet still really aggressive. What I appreciated the most was that Barney kept his vocals as rough as ever, except on a couple of tracks. Some bands smooth out their vocals completely, but ND would never do that - good call. By the third song, "Ripe for the breaking" I was already nodding in desbelief, but the clean guitar break really cracked me up! I couldn't believe it. The song "Cold forgiveness" is not bad, but I think it goes too far into industrial for ND. Besides that, there is really not a flaw in this album. It also goes to show that Death Metal or even Grindcore has room for experimentation. At the time I was getting into a "it better be really original or I won't like it" state of mind (I still am), and this cd surpassed my expectations. Napalm Death came back strong on this album, and they're still the best Grindcore band ever.

Anyone who gives this album less than 5 stars is insane. This album is insane, some of Napalm Death's better new work. Cursed to crawl, Glimpse into Genocide, Greed Killing, Just rewards...every song totally knocks you down. If you are just getting into Napalm and need a crash course definately start with this and Fear, Emptiness, Despair, and Harmony Corruption...you won't be sorry. Barney's voice is king all others should bow down to the master.

This is a great Death metal disc. I bought back when it came out and still listen to it. It's too bad some people just don't get it. Highlights: My Own Worst Enemy, Placate-Sedate-Eradicate, Cold Forgiveness.

I'm only here to say that the Amazon editor for this album must've been on crack while writing his review. At no time is At the Gates, or the other boring, crappy band that he mentioned ever even close to being more brutal than Napalm Death.The nu-metal scene doesn't have the rawness and brutality that Napalm Death has always had. This editor definitely has his head way up his ars!!!