''From Enslavement to Obliteration'' is the second studio album by English

grindcore Grindcore is an extreme fusion genre of heavy metal and hardcore punk that originated in the mid-1980s, drawing inspiration from abrasive-sounding musical styles, such as thrashcore, crust punk, hardcore punk, extreme metal, and industrial. G ...

band

Napalm Death Napalm Death are an English grindcore band formed in 1981 in Meriden, West Midlands. None of the band's original members has been in the group since 1986. But since ''Utopia Banished'' (1992), the lineup of bassist Shane Embury, guitarist Mitch ...

, released in 1988. It is the final studio album with vocalist Lee Dorrian and guitarist

Bill Steer William Geoffrey Steer (born 3 December 1969) is a British guitarist and co-founder of the extreme metal band Carcass. He is considered a pioneer and an essential contributor to grindcore and death metal due to his involvement in Napalm Death and ...

, and the first to feature bassist

Shane Embury Shane Embury (born 27 November 1967) is a British bassist and a member of the grindcore and death metal band Napalm Death since 1987. Career Napalm Death While not a founding member, Embury is the longest standing member of the band, havin ...

, the band's longest-tenured member. A remastered version was released on 2 April 2012.

Loudwire ''Loudwire'' is an American online media magazine that covers news of hard rock and heavy metal artists. It is owned by media and entertainment business Townsquare Media. Since its launch in August of 2011, ''Loudwire'' has secured exclusive ...

put it on the list of the 10 best metal albums of 1988.

Background

The album's lyrical themes cover a variety of social and political topics, including misogyny/ sexism ("It's a M.A.N.S World" and "Inconceivable?"), animal rights ("Display to Me…"), racism ("Unchallenged Hate" and "From Enslavement to Obliteration"),

materialism Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materiali ...

("Private Death"), and

anti-capitalism Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. In this sense, anti-capitalists are those who wish to replace capitalism with another type of economic system, such as s ...

("Make Way!"). The album calls for social change, as seen in the song "Uncertainty Blurs the Vision," quoting

Rudimentary Peni Rudimentary Peni are a British anarcho-punk band formed in 1980, emerging from the London anarcho-punk scene. Lead singer/guitarist Nick Blinko is notorious for his witty, macabre lyrics and dark pen-and-ink artwork, prominently featured on a ...

at the song's conclusion. Shane Embury retrospectively commented on the band's progression up until ''From Enslavement to Obliteration'' in '' Kerrang!'' magazine:

Reception

In 2009 ''From Enslavement to Obliteration'' was ranked number 1 in '' Terrorizers list of essential European grindcore albums. Writer Jonathan Horsley described it as marking "the genre's perilous rite of passage through Britain's post-industrial urban landscape." '' Classic Rock'' reviewer remarked how the stable line-up brought "new maturity and coherence" and reminded that "for an all-too-brief moment in time, this album could lay claim to being the most extreme collection of songs ever recorded". In 2017, '' Rolling Stone'' ranked ''From Enslavement to Obliteration'' as 59th on their list of 'The 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time.'

Track listing

''The Curse''

''The Curse'' is a free 7-inch extended play included in the initial copies of the ''From Enslavement to Obliteration'' LP, which was released through

Earache Records Earache Records is a British independent record label, music publisher and management company founded by Digby Pearson in 1985, based in Nottingham, England, with offices in London and New York. The label helped to pioneer extreme metal by rel ...

in September 1988. The cover uses the famous photograph of

Phan Thi Kim Phuc Phan Thị Kim Phúc (; born April 6, 1963), referred to informally as the girl in the picture and the Napalm girl, is a South Vietnamese-born Canadian woman best known as the nine-year-old child depicted in the Pulitzer Prize–winning photog ...

fleeing a napalm attack, taken by

Nick Ut Huỳnh Công Út, known professionally as Nick Ut (born March 29, 1951), is a Vietnamese-American photographer who worked for the Associated Press (AP) in Los Angeles. He won both the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography and the 1973 W ...

Track listing

*The song "Morbid Deceiver" is a re-recording of the song "Deceiver", originally on the album '' Scum''.

Personnel

;Napalm Death * Lee Dorrian – lead vocals *

– guitars *

– bass * Mick Harris – drums, backing vocals ;Production *Steve Bird – engineering *Mark Sikora – cover art *Mike Marsh – mastering

Trivia

Some LPs had a sticker with the following line printed on it: "We wanted to be the biggest rock band in the world and you don't do that sounding like Napalm Death" Joe Elliot ( Def Leppard)

Grindcore Grindcore is an extreme fusion genre of heavy metal and hardcore punk that originated in the mid-1980s, drawing inspiration from abrasive-sounding musical styles, such as thrashcore, crust punk, hardcore punk, extreme metal, and industrial. G ...

band Sore Throat included a track called "From Off License to Obliteration" on their 101-track 1988 album ''Disgrace to the Corpse of Sid'', also released on

Charts

References

{{Authority control Napalm Death albums 1988 albums Earache Records albums