Anaal Nathrakh
United Kingdom · formed 1999 · last active 2024
Anaal Nathrakh are Mick Kenney and Dave Hunt, a Birmingham duo who spent twenty-five years making the most punishing record they could and then adding the thing that shouldn't fit. The frame is grindcore speed under black metal shrieking, but the drums are programmed and the production is deliberately mechanical — reviewers of The Codex Necro (2001) describe a wall of noise built from 'insanely fast-mechanized drums' and 'a remorseless sense of industrial coldness'. Over the albums that followed, Hunt started laying enormous clean choruses over the blast beats and orchestral samples crept in behind them, so a track can move from digital-hardcore ugliness to something close to anthemic without ever slowing down. They publish no lyrics, describe themselves as apolitical, and have kept Napalm Death's Shane Embury on live bass for years — a band whose extremity has never had anything to do with the politics that usually travel with it.
SCORE PROFILE
Accent numbers counted towards the index. Hover an axis — or hold it on a phone — for what it means.
WHY THOSE SCORES
- Hardcore 7 — Grindcore tempos and crust-adjacent aggression are half the band's DNA - grindcore is named among the fused elements, and the live/session bassist across 2004-2012 was Napalm Death's Shane Embury.
- Death 6 — Growled, palm-muted heaviness sits under the shrieking; the band is routinely filed as 'industrial death metal' and 'blackened death'.
- Black 8 — Tremolo riffing, blast beats and shrieked vocals are the primary idiom - 'industrial black metal' is the most-used tag and the debut is discussed as a landmark of it.
- Technical 5 — Dense, fast, multi-layered arrangements, though the complexity serves extremity rather than display.
- Glitch 5 — Electronic construction rather than electronic decoration: every album is built on programmed drums and machine rhythm, Mick Kenney credited with drum programming and programming since 1999, and reviewers describe The Codex Necro as mixing 'industrial elements, programmed drums and seriously high distortion' into 'an insurmountable wall of noise', with 'a distorted, feedback-laden production that spits out psychotically robotic vocals'. Scored one below Godflesh (6), the atlas's reference point for machine-rhythm industrial metal, because here the drum machine is a chosen instrument inside a black/grind record rather than the record's whole organising idea.
- Theatrical 1 — Pseudonyms and apocalyptic framing, no staging.
- Ambient 2 — Sample-and-drone intros and orchestral pads bridge some tracks; atmosphere is a seasoning, never a section.
MEMBERS
- Mick Kenney (Irrumator)guitars, bass, drums, drum programming, programming (1999-present)
- Dave Hunt (V.I.T.R.I.O.L.)vocals (1999-present)
- Shane Emburylive/session bass (2004-2006, 2012) - not a member· also in Napalm Death
- Nicholas Barkerlive/session drums (2004) - not a member
- John Cookelive/session bass (2015-present) - not a member
- Dan Roselive guitar (2011-present) - not a member
CONNECTIONS
- Napalm Deathsatellitepath →
Shane Embury in both — bass (1987-present) in Napalm Death, live/session bass (2004-2006, 2012) - not a member in Anaal Nathrakh. source ↗
- Mayhempath →
Attila Csihar (Mayhem) sings on 'Atavism', from the 2003 EP When Fire Rains Down From the Sky, Mankind Will Reap as It Has Sown (Mordgrimm/Earache), alongside Aborym's Sethlans Teitan on guitar. Same shape as the existing violent-magic-orchestra and vampillia guest-vocal edges to Mayhem. source ↗
- Napalm Deathsatellitepath →
Anaal Nathrakh's Mick Kenney (Irrumator) did Napalm Death's cover art across six releases — "Order Of The Leech" (2002, Artwork [Image Manipulation], Design [Front Cover]), "The Code Is Red... Long Live The Code" (2005, Artwork [Album Art By]), "Noise For Music's Sake" (2005, cover illustration and booklet), "Smear Campaign" (2006, Artwork [Album Art]) and "Time Waits For No Slave" (2009, Illustration). Anchored at Kenney's own band per PROTOCOL rule 6 — the pairwise artwork exception applies only where the artist is not an atlas band member. Separate from the existing Shane Embury member edge. source ↗
FURTHER LISTENING
Nearest score profiles in the atlas.
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