The Melvins and Napalm Death Collide To Construct Mighty ‘Savage Imperial Death March’ (ALBUM REVIEW)

In 2016 and 2025, Washington alt-rock innovators The Melvins toured as co-headliners with UK grindcore veterans Napalm Death under the banner Savage Imperial Death March. The tours showcased contrasting heavy styles. The Melvins, pioneers of the grunge and sludge metal movements, bring intricate riffing at various tempos and odd time signatures, while Napalm Death, pioneers of the grindcore scene, favor an abrasive, ultra-fast mixture of punk and metal with harsh vocals. Now the bands join forces for their first collaborative album, Savage Imperial Death March, and the result is wild, messy fun.

The album features The Melvins’ Buzz Osborne on vocals, guitar, and bass, and Dale Crover on drums. From Napalm Death are singer Mark “Barney” Greenway, guitarist John Cooke, and Shane Embury on guitar, bass, and synth. Members of both bands wrote the songs collaboratively, so rather than having some songs that sound like The Melvins and others that sound like Napalm Death, each track is an uneasy fusion of styles. The result is an eccentric album that is transcendent at times and maddening at others, but never boring.

Such is the case with the album opener, “Tossing the Coins into the Fountain of Fuck,” which mixes an uptempo ascending riff with psychedelic lead guitar licks, Crover’s bludgeoning drums, and Greenway’s signature caveman growl. It’s ultra-heavy and loaded with guitar hooks. Still, it feels like two songs coexisting — one a violent rampage with Greenway’s endless string of gutteral F-bombs, the other with a free-flowing groove with improvisational noodling.

In the midtempo “Some Kind of Antichrist,” Osborne and Greenway alternate vocals over chugging guitar riffs. It almost feels like a standard alternative anthem until the song devolves into discordant noise and spends the final six minutes building a disintegrating horror-movie atmosphere. 

“Nine Days of Rain” is more restrained. The song paints an appropriately dreary mood, with Osborne and Greenway’s harmonized vocals about a place with “no memory of sunshine” and unnerving guitar arpeggios backed by wah-pedal licks. 

The hook-heavy “Rip the God” has that signature Melvins sound — slow, off-kilter Osborne guitar riffs as Osborne sings the first half of the song and Greenway screams the second. “A tiny world of incredible noise, I couldn’t stand it,” Osborne sings. “The highlights put on back to back is not to see you.”

The album ends with “Death Hour,” which starts heavy and culminates in several minutes of mayhem, unrestrained guitar noises, unintelligible vocals, and the impression of the recording studio being torn asunder. 

Whether on the chaotic aggression of “Steeling Horses” or the spacey synth-heavy “Awful Handwriting,” with vocals that are mostly grunts, Savage Imperial Death March throws together each band’s styles like impromptu, drug-induced science experiments. Most of the madcap antics work, while other moments are exciting failures. While it’s not an easy album to digest, it’s fun for those who enjoy the experimental process.