Melvins with Napalm Death – Savage Imperial Death March (Review)

This is a collaborative album between two legendary acts, Melvins from the US and Napalm Death from the UK.

Originally released last year as a 6-track limited tour CD/vinyl, Savage Imperial Death March is now getting a full release, with two extra songs and new artwork. It’s a 40-minute journey into an uncrowded collaborative space that brings together the sludgy melodic skill of Melvins and the off-centre experimental side of Napalm Death.

As you may imagine, Savage Imperial Death March is relatively varied, and has had a lot of styles and influences thrown into it. Punk, sludge, death metal, noise rock, industrial, and more can all be found across the record, making for a collection of tracks that have a lot to offer. Due to the talent and experience of those involved, it’s blended well, and never comes across as variety for the sake of it; you can tell that this music exists purely for the love of it.

Savage Imperial Death March is at turns catchy, eccentric, striking, and creative. It’s also really good. It has an obvious experimental character, yet never loses sight of the fact that having the main parts of an actual song is important. The band accomplish this by constructing idiosyncratic layers and unconventional ideas around a central core structure. The latter itself is sometimes non-standard in places, but usually has enough of a familiar layout to ground the song and prevent it from going off the rails fully. This allows them to take advantage of hooks, (sometimes subtle, sometimes huge), while also getting to indulge in whatever direction their creative urges decide to go down. Some Kind of Antichrist is a good example of this – part catchy mindworm, part electronic workout.

So there you have it then; Savage Imperial Death March is a strong and enjoyable collaboration of tracks from Melvins and Napalm Death. Make sure you check this one out if you fancy something a little different.

Highly recommended.