It’s amazing it took Napalm Death until their 14th studio album to get John Zorn in the studio with them. After all, he’d cited them as an influence on the “hardcore miniatures” heard on Naked City’s self-titled, Torture Garden and Grand Guignol albums, and poached their drummer, Mick Harris, for his skronk-improv trio, Painkiller (who were even signed to Napalm’s label, Earache, for their first two releases). But somehow their paths never fully crossed in the expected way until “Everyday Pox,” the third track on this disc. Zorn manages to cram two concise but coherent and complete saxophone solos into the song’s 2:10 running time; he’s first heard at the 30-second mark, screeching and wailing in the horn’s uppermost register behind Greenway’s roars, then again from 1:40 to the end of the track, spitting out echoey, reverbed squiggles and squeals just like he used to do in Painkiller. It’s more than enough to make you wish he’d play with them for an entire album or concert, just soloing away as they blast through their songs.

Of course, the rest of Utilitarian doesn’t suffer from his absence. It’s one of the best latter-day, “neo-grind” Napalm Death albums, with all the fury of Smear Campaign or The Code Is Red …Long Live The Code, but more discipline (and no Jello Biafra). The doubling of Greenway’s vocals is more obvious than usual on a few tracks, but that’s balanced by amazing performances like “The Wolf I Feed,” where Shane Embury’s unhinged howling is more prominent than ever — he’s basically a co-lead vocalist — and the clean chorus makes the song a perfect balance of melody and extremity. (Embury steps forward again on “Orders Of Magnitude,” and, if possible, sounds even scarier. He’s a screeching goblin, and good for him.) And musically, the band is just on fire. Herrera’s drumming is relentless in the best way, and Mitch Harris’s layered guitars saw at your ears sometimes, and soar above the din at others. And the D-beat bass-and-drums intro, ending with a pick slide, that kicks off “Everything In Mono” is fantastic. There are as many headbang-worthy moments as get-in-the-pit-and-kill-someone explosions; other than its relatively slow-paced introductory track, “Circumspect,” it’s pretty much all barrage, but with enough variation to keep fans of their more exploratory material tuned in.