LET THERE BE GRIND!

Five landmark albums from the gods of grindcore

NAPALM DEATH

From Enslavement To Obliteration

(earache, 1988)

The band who embody grindcore more than any other. If Napalm’s debut, Scum, had announced their arrival in spectacular fashion, then the follow-up raised the stakes even further. Brutal, uncompromising and politically charged, it changed the game, landing the band on the cover of the NME and ushering in a new era of extremity.

REPULSION

Horrified

(necrosis/earache, 1989)

The grindcore motherlode. Originally recorded as the Slaughter Of The Innocent demo in 1986, it was given a proper release three years later, by which time its confrontational mix of blastbeats and guttural roars had already changed the DNA of extreme metal.

CARCASS

Symphonies Of Sickness

(earache, 1989)

Featuring a set of gloriously OTT songtitles ripped from gruesome medical textbooks – Embryonic Necropsy And Devourment, Crepitating Bowel Erosion

– the Scousers’ second album was simultaneously funny and deadly serious. Full marks for the original release’s hyper-graphic dissected body parts cover, too.

TERRORIZER

World Downfall

(earache, 1989)

Featuring future members of Napalm Death and Morbid Angel, LA’s Terrorizer were a grindcore supergroup. Their debut exploded like a car bomb when it landed, proving grindcore wasn’t the exclusive property of pasty-faced Brits.

NASUM

Inhale/Exhale

(relapse, 1998)

The album that woke grindcore from its slumber: an unrelenting aural assault that plunged vicious shards of noise into the corpulent body of 90s metal. Everyone from Napalm Death to Slipknot sat up and paid attention. Grindcore was back with a vengeance!