Napalm Death

Napalm Death were the band responsible for hacking off the Metal limb that would subsequently regenerate as Grindcore. Pushing the human body to discover the limits of how fast it can drum, strum and vocalize, the tempos they achieved on their early albums are unsurpassable, except digitally. Guitar notes swarm in on listeners like a cloud of flesh-eating insects with a fondness for ear meat, while the drums seem like they're being played with a machine gun. Meanwhile, vocal duties sound like they're being shared by Yoda after a long trek through the desert without water and a shrieking Sam Kinison stuck in a cocaine-less Hell. Though later efforts found the band backing off maximum overdrive to explore heaviness at slower speeds, their music still teems with sound and fury. Napalm Death's organ-mulching blasts of noise continue to define the state of the art in audio brutality.