After two albums on the Spitfire label, Napalm Death signed with Century Media, an independent metal label that had achieved success with melodic Scandinavian acts like Arch Enemy and Dark Tranquillity, and the Italian pop-metal group Lacuna Coil. They had their noisy side, too, of course — they were Eyehategod’s label throughout the ’90s. But Napalm’s working-class, dirt-under-the-nails approach to death metal/grindcore definitely stuck out amid the comparative slickness of Century Media’s flagship acts.

The Code Is Red …Long Live The Code also brought a lineup shift with it — the first one in a while. Guitarist Jesse Pintado had officially left the band in order to reform his first band, Terrorizer, and Napalm chose not to replace him, moving on as a quartet. The resulting album is one of the fastest and most unrelenting in their late-period discography. Although the opening track (and “single”) “Silence Is Deafening” is the length of a normal song at 3:48, it doesn’t feel that way; it absolutely blazes along, leaving you breathless as you try to shout along with Barney. And the impression of blinding speed and unstoppable fury is solidified by the two tracks that follow, the 53-second “Right You Are” and the 1:45 “Diplomatic Immunity.” There are no solos, and the riffs are almost as one-dimensional as any you’d hear on a Discharge 7″ from 1981. Danny Herrera hammers the snare like he’s trying to drive nails through the head. For 15 tracks in a row, the fury never truly abates. But then, the album ends with a two-minute almost ambient track, “Our Pain Is Their Power,” an ideal come-down after 45 minutes of blazing.

Interestingly, amid all the hyper-aggression, Napalm seem to have actually tried to bring in new fans on this album, through the use of guest vocalists. Jamey Jasta of Hatebreed appears on two tracks, “Instruments Of Persuasion” and “All Hail The Grey Dawn”; Jello Biafra sneers and gibbers through “The Great And The Good”; and Jeff Walker of Carcass can be heard on “Losers,” a bonus track on the deluxe edition. None of them add very much, but they represent a pretty broad range of genres (punk, hardcore, extreme metal), all of which Napalm have influenced.