It’s easy to be pessimistic. Even easier to be defeatist. And that’s when things are going alright. When they are as we currently experience them – confused, divided, frustrated, scared, dark – it’s the background hum of life, the note to which you become tuned. Pick your shitshow and let it deflate you.
Or not. Joy can seem in short supply in 2020, but it is there to be found if you let it reach you. And while Napalm Death’s 16th album was put to bed and sent to print before COVID took hold, its spirit, its defiance, its refusal to take Shit Things Happening lying down – inhumane treatment of refugees, persecution of LGBTQ+ citizens as government policy, marginalising human beings for personal gain through division, racist shithousery – is the sort of energy that refuses believe that all is lost. Because through the obvious anger at these things, via the medium of scalding music that excites like being thrown down a flight of stairs, you’re also left with an explosive sense of joy – real, heart-blasting, life-affirming, boundless, vital joy.