Melvins & Napalm Death — Savage Imperial Death March

When I first heard about this collaboration between The Melvins and Napalm Death, I thought I had a good idea how this was going to sound- but aside from a few tracks, this album sounds nothing like I was expecting. And I think it’s fair to say that for the most part, Savage Imperial Death March is very much a dive into the odd, off-kilter, and downright weird.

The album consists of eight tracks, with a total runtime of thirty-eight minutes. With track runtimes between three and nine minutes. We move from “Some Kind of Antichrist” which starts relatively normal with a bound and chugg riff, and call/ repeat vocals from each band's lead singer. But over the top, we start getting blends of baying slide guitar & morphing synth wails. We then pare back to just bass guitar trobs, backward tones, and wavering effect-fed vocals- with slamming/ tolling in another room percussion, off-kilter synth flows, and more oddly bayed/ effect idled vocals.

Later on, we have “Rip the God” which blends undistorted angular guitar strums, dual vocal shouts'n' leers, wavering uneasy guitar pitches, and a percussion backing that feels both in & out of time. We have “Comparison Is The Thief Joy” which opens with a blend of electro bass stabs, falsetto wails, and marching/ squelching drums. Before moving into a mix of distant gunning/ rocking guitars, warbling electro tone play, shifting percussion field, soaring high vocalizing & shifting music box tones.

To say Savage Imperial Death March was very much of a weird and wonderful surprise is an understatement. Apparently, the album was a fifty/ fifty collab, and together they conjured up such an unpredictable and keenly experimental yet entertaining record, which really is unlike anything else, from either band's catalogue, or by anyone else.