OUR LIST OF 2018’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 17): BORN TO MURDER THE WORLD AND ANAAL NATHRAKH

 

I may have made a mistake with this 17th installment of my expanding list of infectious songs — not in the choice of the two tracks, because I do find them damned infectious, but in the decisions to pair them in a single place instead of dispersing them among different Parts of the list. Because, as you’ll see, they seem like fraternal twins — closely related though not monozygotic (there, maybe some of you just discovered a new word). The two tracks do share a parent (Mick Kenney), which may have something to do with the sonic kinship.

By the way, we’re now 42 tracks into this list, and based on past experience we’re more than halfway through. I will continue doing this through the impending end of this month and at least a couple weeks into February. If you’re one of those ornery types who thinks the list is already excessive, that’s tough, because I don’t care and you can’t stop me. If you want to check out the preceding 40 songs, they’re collected here.

BORN TO MURDER THE WORLD

My pal DGR was a big backer of this band (and I do mean BIG) from the moment when he first heard of its existence (“a band made just for me”). Born To Murder The World was started by Shane Embury (Napalm Death, Brujeria, etc.) and the afore-mentioned Mick Kenney (Anaal Nathrakh/Mistress), joined by vocalist Duncan Wilkins (Fukpig, Mistress), and their debut output, The Infinite Mirror Of Millennial Narcissism (ouch!) was released last August.

 

 

As a sign of just how much DGR loved the record, he both reviewed it and then reviewed it a second time when he put it at No. 18 on his year-end Top 50 list. This, despite the fact that the “album” is fifteen minutes long. Fifteen minutes.

“Together,” as DGR wrote, “they are the sort of band who sound exactly like what their component parts might suggest: an extremely noisy fusion of grind (Napalm Death‘s rapid start/stop nature being a common theme here) and a variety of other extreme genres, all played at intensely high speeds, with Mick Kenney‘s penchant for turning the volume up to 110% and a man effectively screaming his lungs raw over the top of it”. It’s all intensity, all the time, and the songs blaze by in such a blinding blur that they’re best experienced in one non-stop block.

Having said that, I do think “Genesis Misconception” stands out, and unlike the 18-second “Tiyanik” (for example), there’s enough meat on its bones and hooks on its claws to get it stuck in the head, which is why it’s here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ANAAL NATHRAKH

This is DGR Day at the old Infectious Song list, because he did the most writing at our site about the band’s 2018 effort to destroy the world (or at least capture the awful destruction of World War I), A New Kind of Horror. Once again, he “penned” a review, and then another review when he put it on his Top 50 list at No. 17 — cheek-by-jowl with that Born To Murder the World jam. See? I’m not the only one who thinks the music belongs together.

There are some no-holds-bared crushers on this disc, as well as a healthy dose of pyrotechnic speed demons, but in my humble opinion the best track (and the most infectious, even ahead of “Forward!”) is the one that closes the album — “Are We Fit for Glory Yet? (The War to End Nothing)”. I know DGR is a big fan of it too, in part because it pushes and bends the band’s somewhat constricted boundaries, and it’s certainly more nuanced than the first track in today’s installment (but still damned catchy). As DGR wrote in his review:

“‘Are We Fit For Glory Yet? (The War To End Nothing) is driven forward by a large array of choral stings that make the song far more cinematic than what Anaal Nathrakh have done in the past. It’s also that the guitar riff constantly forces the song forward, darting quickly throughout the entirety of the track and making everything conform to it. It’s interesting in part because this runs opposite of a few Nathrakh releases, which seem to have solid end-points but then jam in a few more songs because ‘fuck you, we can’. ‘Are We Fit For Glory Yet?’ is constructed as a closing song, and fills that role so perfectly that it turns out to be one of the better tracks on the album as it ties things off in a neatly destructive and nihilistic fashion”.