Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (Bonus Tracks Version)

Sixteen albums in, Napalm Death are as vital as ever. With Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, the hyper-political UK grind progenitors address the plight of “the other”: how those perceived as outsiders are systematically dehumanised by various political, cultural and religious systems—not to mention their fellow man. “This has been happening since time immemorial,” vocalist Barney Greenway tells Apple Music. “But now governments are using this stuff to try and increase their power. So I thought it was really important to point this stuff out, and for Napalm Death to be the antithesis.” In other words, this is protest music—pure and simple. “We want to stand up and say, ‘If the human race means anything, this is just not acceptable,’” explains Greenway, who wrote most of the lyrics to bassist Shane Embury’s churning musical assault. “If it has become permissible for this social exclusion and dehumanisation to be happening, who's to say what could happen next?” Below, Greenway takes us into the belly of Napalm’s beast. F**k the Factoid “This is the archetypal ‘take the brakes off, go down the track and let’s see if the train doesn’t come off the line’ type of song. But it’s also got, I think, what points to the chemistry of the writers after 16 albums, because there’s also more quirky elements to the song. Lyrically, it’s about fake news and how factoids, small pieces of information, are knitted together sometimes to mean something completely different than what they evidently mean—and how that is used to dehumanise people.” Backlash Just Because “This is the first single that was put out there, and in some ways it’s a very trad Napalm sort of thing. I think it has elements of the Fear, Emptiness, Despair period mixed with the earlier stuff. The thing that kicked my ass when I first heard this song was the bass at the start. I was just, ‘Fucking shit, that sounds like a concrete mixer!’ So it was thumbs up from me straight away. The song talks about deliberate