Napalm Death Unleashes Ferocious Tiny Desk Performance Featuring World’s Shortest Song

Imagine the scene at NPR headquarters: staffers seated at their desks covering politics, the environment, or science, when suddenly the legendary grindcore pioneers Napalm Death set up next door for a Tiny Desk concert. Curiosity would inevitably draw anyone within earshot. Fortunately, the band’s 19-minute set aligned ideologically with the host institution; frontman Barney Greenway even wore a Crass T-shirt, signaling political leanings arguably further left than the typical NPR audience.

The long-running death metal and grindcore outfit, which released the collaborative album Savage Imperial Death March with the Melvins last year, kept the proceedings brief and biting. Their setlist pulled three tracks from their seminal 1987 debut, Scum—a fun fact: no current member performed on that original recording—opening with “Instinct of Survival” and closing with the title track “Scum” and their Guinness World Record-holding shortest song, “You Suffer.” (Its lyrics, “You suffer, but why?” resonate as a question the network has arguably pondered for years.)

The band clearly understood the assignment. “Let me say, we are here to heartily support public access broadcasting,” Greenway addressed the office. “Unfortunately, it is under attack from all sides, in the U.K. as well as over here, and we have to take care of it. It’s precious. It has to be preserved.”

Rounding out the lineup alongside Greenway are guitarist John Cooke, bassist Matt Sheridan, and drummer Danny Herrera. The remainder of the set spanned the group’s extensive catalog, drawing from their latest full-length, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, as well as Utilitarian (2012) and Time Waits for No Slave (2009). A welcome surprise arrived with “Dead” from From Enslavement to Obliteration. Coffee, anyone?

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