"We're Napalm Death and we're from Birmingham, England," vocalist Barney tells Shibuya's Club Quattro.
Hold it there. Imagine Satan taking the form of a giant pterodactyl and dropping a titanic turd that splatters across the middle of England. That's Birmingham: an unsightly sprawl, a cultural wasteland. It's nothing to shout about. But then again, it's a fitting birthplace for Napalm Death. They've never had much luck.
Napalm Death formed in 1981 as an anarcho-punk band and then became the standard-bearer of a genre called grindcore, which is a squall of guitar noise, fierce staccato drumming, growled vocals and short songs. When the songs got longer and the guitars more defined, the band was crowned champion of "death metal." It's arguable whether Napalm Death invented grindcore or death metal, but it was certainly a prime mover in each scene and played a crucial role in the evolution of punk, metal and noise.