The Broadberry
2729 W Broad St, Richmond, Virginia 23220
From the original Facebook Event:
Municipal Waste & Napalm Death at The Broadberry
w/ Sick Of It All
& Take Offense
Wednesday, October 9th
Doors at 8, Music at 9
$24.50 ADV
Municipal Waste
So what happens when a band’s riotous reputation catches up with them? Precautionary measures are taken and they - of course - get banished, only this time, it’s into space! When the greedy ship captain hordes the food rations, the crew kicks into survival mode, commit mutiny, and devour their captain skewing the story into a horrific yet fantastic cannibalistic voyage into space that cult movies are made of.
The Fatal Feast, the fifth studio album by Richmond, Virginia’s speed metal punks MUNICIPAL WASTE, not only ponders the type of moral dilemma faced in the title track but also tackles earthly issues that consistently plague humanity (“Covered In Sick/The Barfer,” “Repossession,” “Standards And Practices,” “12 Step Program,” “Crushing Chest Wound”). These 37 minutes of new music consolidate the best of everything the band’s got to offer: their utmost respect for headbang-inducing riffs, their trademarked aggression, their tongue-in-cheek sense of humor, and their talent for extracting meaning out of the absurd.
Rising from the squalor of a cursed punk house for their live debut at a New Year’s Eve keg party welcoming in 2001, founding members Ryan Waste and Tony Foresta quickly embraced a DYI ethic to spread the word about their band and graduated to booking shows out-of-state and even in Mexico. After a self-titled EP and the Waste ‘Em All debut album in 2003, bassist Phil “LandPhil” Hall and former Melt Banana drummer Dave Witte were ushered into the fold. This line-up went on to record three full-length albums for Earache Records (2005’s Hazardous Mutation, 2007’s The Art Of Partying, and 2009’s Massive Aggressive), earning such accolades throughout their career as “MUNICIPAL WASTE do it so well that any track could squeeze comfortably between D.R.I. and Gang Green on a mix tape” from Spin Magazine, “No band sound more authentic,” from Alternative Press, “A gold standard” from Decibel magazine, and “Undeniably the best at what they do,” from Outburn magazine. Visually, the band also delivered, as evidenced by the success of the devil-may-care and often outrageous attitude of their videos which have all become fan-chanted anthems at their live shows. The fact is, no one could argue against MUNICIPAL WASTE’s reputation as the ultimate feel-good party band.
Dedicated to keeping the spirit of the 1980’s cross-over scene alive, it was with their uncontrollable mirth and succinct songs that lead MUNICIPAL WASTE to reap the rewards of their hard work. By the time they signed with new label Nuclear Blast in 2011, they had proven themselves as die-hard road warriors who could tour & perform with bands outside their genre such as Suicidal Tendencies, The Casualties, 7 Seconds, Circle Jerks, Sick Of It All, GWAR, Lamb Of God, Children Of Bodom, and At The Gates and win over their crowds. Here they are 11 years later and their rabid fan base – which includes fans of metal, punk, and hardcore - continues to expand.
With artwork by Justin Osbourn of Slasher Design, 2012’s The Fatal Feast is the first MUNICIPAL WASTE album to feature contributions from invited guests. Steve Moore of Zombi penned the intro to the title track and the spacey “Waste In Space,” John Connelly of Nuclear Assault’s vocals grace the album’s title track, and former singer Tim Barry of Richmond punk legends Avail jumps in on “Standards And Practices.”
Aptly hailed as “an interstellar thrashterpiece” by Decibel magazine, MUNICIPAL WASTE’s The Fatal Feast debuted at #3 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart. Not bad for a band from Virginia, eh? Space may be a noiseless vacuum for amateurs who don’t travel with their own P.A. system, but seasoned veterans of extreme situations MUNICIPAL WASTE always know better than to leave home without it!
Napalm Death
What makes NAPALM DEATH so special? Well, let’s think back 30 years: Would you have thought that a grindcore band from Birmingham would ever make it into the official album charts with some of the most infernal noise ever put on tape, enter the Guinness book for the shortest song ever recorded or appear in a prominent UK TV series named “Skins”? That it would be part of an Alice Cooper hosted episode of BBC’s Never Mind the Buzzcocks to guess from a couple of look-alikes who is the singer in NAPALM DEATH? Could you have ever imagined a down-to-earth lad named Mark “Barney” Greenway, a soccer fan (Aston Villa F.C.), vegetarian, prog metal freak and one of music history’s most renowned representatives of “cookie monster” style vocals would become a personality within the extreme music realm that is not about beer-drinking and hell-raising but synonymous with sounding hard while being smart? Well, that is where we are at now. From filthy, sweaty rehearsal rooms and tiny clubs and pubs NAPALM DEATH has conquered every music festival you can think of and toured through corners of the world a lot of bands would not even dare to tour while becoming famous for combining brutal music with political engagement and ethical values beyond the usual cliché of sex, drugs & rock n roll. And, as most fans will be delighted to hear, this remarkable story is far from being over…
Fourteen albums in (not counting the cover-platter “Leaders…Part 2”) three decades and NAPALM DEATH remain the leaders of the grindcore / death metal world, once again showing the upstarts how it's done. Not content to simply wear the term “legendary,” the band has once again raised the bar on what it takes to remain at the top of the heap with its highly anticipated new album “Utilitarian”. While their past roster reads like a who's who of extreme metal royalty, including Lee Dorrian (Cathedral), Bill Steer (Carcass), Justin Broadrick (Godflesh) and the late Jesse Pintado (Terrorizer) to name a few, it's the current line-up of Mark "Barney" Greenway (vocals), Mitch Harris (guitars), Shane Embury (bass), and Danny Herrera (drums) that has kept the legend alive and seething. “Utilitarian” is the follow-up to the band’s much lauded 2009 album, “Time Waits For No Slave”, and sees the quartet return in expected raw and uncompromising fashion.
In the wake of a gruelling international tour schedule for “Time Waits For No Slave”, NAPALM DEATH finally got down to writing for “Utilitarian” in early 2011. It was recorded over the course of the year at Parlour Studios in Northamptonshire, UK with producer Russ Russell monitoring the mayhem, finally mixed and mastered in November. The end result is vicious and chaotic, but Greenway notes that “the ever-present darker, more ambient side of Napalm (references: Swans, My Bloody Valentine, Birthday Party et al) has now gotten faster, too – or at least the tempo of it varies so it’s not just exclusively slow and mournful. This gives it an extra, obtuse dimension. And hopefully people get lost in the frantic thickness of it.”
“Utilitarian” runs the gamut from straight-ahead violence and force to pure, undiluted NAPALM DEATH-induced chaos that overall provides a well-rounded bloodletting that's not for the weak and also confronts the listener with such surprising moments as the sax passages by none other than John Zorn on ‘Everyday Pox’ or choral-like clean sections in ‘Fall On Their Swords’ or ‘Blank Look About Face’. The latter is a perfect bridge to the album’s outspoken lyrical content as it viciously attacks politicians’ opportunistic talk that according to Greenway only knows one goal: “Say anything to tame a crowd - whether it is sycophantic praise, bullshit morality or rabble-rousing power-speak - as long as they can cling on to their place in the hierarchy.”
True to the band’s tradition of spitting gallons of verbal venom, “Utilitarian” is an in-your-face razor-edged platter of social, cultural and political commentary. Far from being a placard-waving “cause” band, the quartet offer up personal views on the degeneration of society ('Everyday Pox'), the arms trade ('Fall On Their Swords'), sexual and gender expression (‘Gag Reflex’), the environment ('Order Of Magnitude') and aspects of everyday life for the common man ('Collision Course', 'Think Tank Trials') revealing Barney’s understanding of what to do with your life: “We have a finite period of existence that is all too easy to waste, and ultimately we all deserve happiness and contentment.” The bottom line is: Think for yourself, liberate yourself and don’t end up feeding the machine that all too willingly eats you up.
Ultimately, NAPALM DEATH are special because they never sacrificed their ideals for anything mundane, will continue pleasing their fans with a stunning record named “Utilitarian” and ceaseless touring activities in support of its release while provoking world leaders with all the rage and criticism you can squeeze into a song. Extreme music’s raised fist is back!