{"id":593179,"date":"2026-04-19T06:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T06:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/593179\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T06:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T06:42:14","slug":"how-grindcore-changed-metal-forever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/593179\/","title":{"rendered":"How grindcore changed metal forever"},"content":{"rendered":"

On April 1989, the BBC aired a landmark documentary as part of its arts-themed Arena strand. The programme\u2019s two-word title was as direct and to-the-point as the subject it covered: Heavy Metal.<\/p>\n

Metal\u2019s great and good lined up in front of the cameras like insects under an entomologist\u2019s microscope: Ozzy<\/a>, Lemmy<\/a>, Lars Ulrich, Jimmy Page, Bruce Dickinson, Axl Rose\u2026 everyone who was anyone was involved.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Towards the end of the show, things took a turn for the weird. Four suspicious-looking men barely out of their teens perched on a bed in a suburban room plastered with horror movie posters explained how their band, Napalm Death<\/a>, were taking things to a whole new place.<\/p>\n

Article continues below <\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got distorted bass, fast drumming and over-the-top vocals,\u201d says the bassist Shane Embury, in a dry Birmingham accent. \u201cEverything in the band is really extreme. That\u2019s the way you\u2019ve got to be, really.\u201d<\/p>\n

To prove this, the film cut to footage of the band rampaging through the title track of their debut album, Scum. With its near-inhuman blastbeats and concrete mixer vocals it sounded less like traditional heavy metal and more like a high speed pile-up on the M6.<\/p>\n

The documentary makers neglected to mention that Napalm were spearheading a new underground movement as revolutionary as thrash had been half a decade earlier. The bastard offspring of British punk, American hardcore and the emergent death metal<\/a> scene, its name encapsulated its ferocity, brutality and sheer will to challenge: grindcore.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Napalm\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Press\/Earache Records)<\/p>\n

In 2017, nearly three decades later, Napalm Death appeared on the BBC again, this time as part of the channel\u2019s coverage of the Glastonbury<\/a> Festival, where they were headlining a specially curated extreme metal line-up. Their appearance showed how much things had changed, but also how little \u2013 sure, they were being introduced to an audience of hundreds of thousands, but the vast majority still wouldn\u2019t have a clue what the hell it was all about.<\/p>\n

Sign up below to get the latest from Metal Hammer, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

More than 30 years after it erupted out of the grotty pubs of Birmingham and the clubs of the American Midwest, grindcore remains metal\u2019s logical end point. Other genres may have challenged it in terms of extremity, but grind has remained constantly ahead of the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key factor with grindcore is that it is so extreme, it\u2019s not \u2018normal\u2019,\u201d says Shane, the heartbeat of Napalm Death since the original BBC documentary. \u201cAs the years have gone on, things have changed but extremity keeps on going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Napalm Death have been the dons of grindcore since the start, but Shane doesn\u2019t take credit for creating the genre. He points towards two pioneering US acts who gave punk and metal a sonic power-up during the first half of the 80s: Boston provocateurs Siege and Flint longhairs Repulsion.<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

We\u2019d get Metallica fans going, \u2018This isn\u2019t metal, it\u2019s not punk, I don\u2019t know what the fuck these guys are doing.\u2019<\/p>\n

Matt Olivo<\/p>\n

The two bands were coming at things from different starting points. Siege were embedded in the febrile East Coast hardcore scene, while Repulsion were part of the emerging DM scene, tracing their influences back through thrash to the likes of Kiss and AC\/DC. But they arrived at the same destination.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t sit down one day and say, \u2018Let\u2019s start doing blastbeats,\u2019\u201d says Repulsion guitarist Matt Olivo, who co-founded the band with bassist\/vocalist Scott Carlson as Tempter in 1984. \u201cIt was a day-by-day thing: \u2018Let\u2019s take what Venom and Slayer and Metallica are doing to the next level.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Repulsion\n<\/p>\n

Grindcore pioneers Repulsion in the late 80s (Image credit: Press)<\/p>\n

Repulsion and Siege did not sound alike but had shared characteristics, chiefly raw, unintelligible vocals (Siege\u2019s insectoid and spat out, Repulsion\u2019s guttural and vomited up), and especially inhumanly fast drumming.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe took the thrash beat and said, \u2018Let\u2019s play the song faster,\u2019\u201d says Matt. \u201cThen we\u2019d be, \u2018Let\u2019s play it even faster.\u2019 We did demos in \u201985 with blastbeats.\u201d<\/p>\n

In those pre-internet days, Repulsion were strictly an underground concern. They rarely played outside of Flint, and when they did they only made it as far as Detroit. There were never more than a hundred people in the crowd for their shows.<\/p>\n

\u201cMostly the response was good,\u201d says Matt, \u201cbut occasionally you\u2019d get these metalheads who were used to listening to Metallica and Slayer or Judas Priest looking at us and going, \u2018This isn\u2019t metal, it\u2019s not punk, I don\u2019t know what the fuck these guys are doing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Repulsion recorded an album in 1986, but no label would release it (it emerged, eventually, in 1989 as Horrified). The band split up soon after.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were from Flint, Michigan, the middle of nowhere. No label would touch us and there was no prospects for us,\u201d says Matt, who joined the military shortly afterwards. \u201cThere was zero interest to sign us. It was just too ahead of its time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shane Embury first heard Repulsion in the mid-80s, even before he joined Napalm Death. He was an avid tape trader, part of a global underground network of extreme music fans who\u2019d exchange demos and albums via snail mail \u2013 a concept that seems slow and archaic today, but was crucial in metal\u2019s development in the 80s and 90s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were called Genocide at the time,\u201d he recalls. \u201cThey were really pushing the sonics. They had death metal influences, but they also had a looseness on the blastbeats, a really punky style. When I met the guys from Napalm, there were definite similarities between the two.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shane knew of Napalm Death from the Birmingham punk scene. They\u2019d been founded by bassist\/sometime vocalist Nik Bullen and drummer Miles Ratledge in 1981, though they\u2019d had countless line-ups since. Their earliest incarnations were equally inspired by the caustic anarcho-punk of Crass and Throbbing Gristle\u2019s menacing electronic noise, but they\u2019d gradually assimilated more extreme influences such as Repulsion, Siege and Swiss avant-garde thrash visionaries Celtic Frost.<\/p>\n

Napalm Death were pushing the blastbeats every week, playing faster and faster. There was a childish excitement to it.<\/p>\n

Shane Embury<\/p>\n

\u201cNapalm were pushing the envelope on speed,\u201d says Shane. \u201cWatching them play live was massively important for me. They were pushing the blastbeats every week, playing faster and faster. There was a childish excitement to it. We were all just vibing on the music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Napalm Death were fixtures at The Mermaid, a Birmingham pub that put on gigs by punk and hardcore bands. The Mermaid was an unlikely hothouse for this emerging scene \u2013 kindred spirits such as Extreme Noise Terror, Heresy and Doom played there.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Carcass\n<\/p>\n

Carcass in the late 1980s (Image credit: Press)<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019d be punks all over the floor, drinking cider, lots of dreadlocks, lots of colourful hair, smell of sick in the toilets,\u201d says Shane. \u201cBut it was great – you could see 10 bands for \u00a31.50.\u201d<\/p>\n

By mid-1987, Napalm Death were set to unleash their debut, Scum, on the world via recently founded Nottingham label Earache. Its A and B sides were recorded nine months apart by two different line-ups: the former featured Nik Bullen, future Godflesh frontman Justin Broadrick on guitar and vocals and drummer Mick Harris; the flipside featured Mick, vocalist Lee Dorrian, guitarist Bill Steer and bassist Jim Whitely. It was, says Shane, Mick Harris who gave this new noise its name.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe term \u2018grindcore\u2019 stems from Mickey,\u201d he says. \u201cHe created that name. His basis for it was fast, distorted noise, but it could also be low as well \u2013 it was just a case of how abrasive it sounded.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regurgitation of Giblets – YouTube
\n\"Regurgitation<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

By the time of Napalm\u2019s second album, 1988\u2019s landmark From Enslavement To Obliteration, Shane had replaced Jim Whitely on bass. The album took the filthy-sounding grind of its predecessor to even more outlandish levels.<\/p>\n

Despite the reticence of the mainstream media (and resistance from conservative elements of the metal press), grindcore had taken root. Bands like Liverpool\u2019s Carcass (featuring Napalm Death\u2019s Bill Steer), Ipswich\u2019s Extreme Noise Terror and Nottingham\u2019s Heresy were inadvertently redrawing metal\u2019s boundaries.<\/p>\n

One unlikely patron of the grindcore scene was influential DJ John Peel, whose nightly Radio 1 show gave airtime to the musical outcasts who wouldn\u2019t normally get played on the station. Peel invited Napalm to the studio to record multiple sessions over the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe liked the extremity of it, he got the challenge of it,\u201d says Shane. \u201cWhen Peel gave us the thumbs up, a bunch of different people who would never have listened to us got into it. You\u2019d have a Repulsion fan standing next to a Sonic Youth fan at our shows.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Napalm\n<\/p>\n

Napalm Death live in London in 1990 (Image credit: Martyn Goodacre\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

This sonic upheaval wasn\u2019t just a British concern. Repulsion may have split up (they briefly reformed in 1990, without Matt Olivo), but a phalanx of American bands were picking up where they left off: Las Vegas brats Righteous Pigs, Florida\u2019s Ass\u00fcck, Los Angeles\u2019 Terrorizer. Similarly, in Scandinavia the likes of Filthy Christians and G-Anx were spreading the grindcore gospel. In Japan, S.O.B. showed grindcore was a truly global proposition.<\/p>\n

Grindcore is protest music. It allows you to get things out of your system that other forms of music don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Vijesh Ghariwala, Wormrot<\/p>\n

The various strands of the grindcore scene were gathered together alongside its death metal counterpart on the 1989 Earache Records compilation, Grindcrusher. The album was a lightning rod for anyone hungry for extremity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat record was so important,\u201d says Anders Jakobson, drummer with Swedish grindcore firebrands Nasum. \u201cYou\u2019ve heard all this extreme music in the 80s, then suddenly it\u2019s been taken to a whole new level.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"SOB\n<\/p>\n

Japanese grindcore band S.O.B (Image credit: Press)<\/p>\n

Ironically, as this was happening the scene\u2019s founding fathers were getting restless. In 1990, Napalm Death released their third album, Harmony Corruption. It featured another change of personnel \u2013 out went Bill Steer and Lee Dorrian (to focus on Carcass and doom metal outliers Cathedral respectively), in came growler Barney Greenway and American guitarists Jesse Pintado and Mitch Harris.<\/p>\n

But an even bigger change came with Napalm\u2019s sound. Many of the condensed punk influences were dispensed with, replaced by a noticeable death metal approach and longer songs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought it would be too easy just to make another blast album, so we did something else,\u201d says Shane. \u201cIt was all choices, but especially Mickey\u2019s. Then funnily enough, he veered off and started listening to Godflesh and Ministry and didn\u2019t want to be in the band anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Nasum\n<\/p>\n

Swedish grindcore band Nasum (Image credit: Press)<\/p>\n

Napalm Death\u2019s move away from the style they\u2019d helped forge coincided with a shift in attention from grindcore towards the technical proficiency of death metal and black metal\u2019s brewing Satanic youthquake. Bands such as New York weed enthusiasts Brutal Truth and Swedish gore fiends Regurgitate kept the grind flag flying, but the scene\u2019s initial impact had quietened down \u2013 at least until Nasum released Inhale\/Exhale in 1998.<\/p>\n

Grindcore regenerates itself every few years. There\u2019s always that need to push things to an extreme.<\/p>\n

Shane Embury<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was Nasum who really pricked my ears up,\u201d says Shane Embury. \u201cIt was their ferociousness. It all seemed fresh and interesting again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inspired by homegrown grind figureheads Filthy Christians and G-Anx, guitarist-turned-drummer Anders Jakobson had formed Nasum in \u00d6rebro, Sweden in 1992, recruiting vocalist\/guitarist Mieszko Talarczyk a year later. \u201cWe started Nasum because there weren\u2019t many grindcore bands at that time,\u201d says Anders.<\/p>\n

When Inhale\/Exhale was released six years later via US label Relapse, it sent a 10,000 volt charge of electricity through the scene. For Shane, it was connected the past and the future. Napalm instantly hit the reset button. Their next album, Enemy Of The Music Business, was their most vituperative since the late 80s.<\/p>\n

Nasum released two more acclaimed albums before their career was cut short by the tragic death of Mieszko Talarczyk in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. By that point, the resurgence they\u2019d helped instigate was in full swing, abetted by the likes of Virginia\u2019s Pig Destroyer and masked San Francisco provocateurs The Locust. Weirder still, grindcore\u2019s influence had finally begun to filter into metal\u2019s mainstream.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve met the Slipknot guys a few times, and they\u2019re totally aware of Napalm, and System Of A Down opened for us at one show in 1997, before they even got signed,\u201d says Shane. \u201cIt\u2019s very nice and very flattering, but obviously they mixed it up with different things.\u201d<\/p>\n

But grindcore\u2019s biggest triumph is more than just its continued survival, it\u2019s the genre\u2019s worldwide reach. The tape-trading network that helped spark the scene into life in the 80s has been superseded by the internet, connecting fans and bands like never before. Today, grindcore isn\u2019t just the preserve of Northern Europe and America \u2013 fertile local scenes can be found in Brazil, Russia and Southeast Asia, all linked by the same intention.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Wormot\n<\/p>\n

Wormot: the face of the global grindcore scene (Image credit: Press)<\/p>\n

\u201cGrindcore is protest music,\u201d says Vijesh Ghariwala of Singapore\u2019s Wormrot, who have released three albums on Earache. \u201cEven if you\u2019re not a political band, or even if you\u2019re not from a poor country, it allows you to get things out of your system that other forms of music don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike many of metal\u2019s other subgenres, grindcore never dates. Its forward momentum, like its velocity, doesn\u2019t allow it to sit still. \u201cIt regenerates itself every few years,\u201d says Shane. \u201cThere\u2019s always that need to push things to an extreme \u2013 and it has got more and more extreme over the last 30 years. If you\u2019ve got that particular gene in you that craves that insane noisy sound, that\u2019s the lasting appeal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three decades after its inception, the success of Napalm Death and the bands they inspired prove as much. Long may they grind.<\/p>\n

Originally published in Metal Hammer issue 325 (July 2019)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On April 1989, the BBC aired a landmark documentary as part of its arts-themed Arena strand. The programme\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-593179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}