From Enslavement to Obliteration

Background

The album's lyrical themes cover a variety of social and political topics, including misogyny/sexism ("It's a M.A.N.S World" and "Inconceivable?"), animal rights ("Display to Me…"), racism ("Unchallenged Hate" and "From Enslavement to Obliteration"), materialism ("Private Death"), and anti-capitalism ("Make Way!"). The album calls for social change, as seen in the song "Uncertainty Blurs the Vision," quoting Rudimentary Peni at the song's conclusion.

Shane Embury retrospectively commented on the band's progression up until From Enslaved... in Kerrang! magazine:

It was a good experience but it was a brief one. Back in those days albums were recorded very quickly – we recorded the album in about six days and I think it cost about £800. In the early days in the very beginning before I joined, it was more of a crust punk band really but it was a natural progression, I think, to get faster and faster. Scum created a buzz and by the time we did FETO, we just wanted to push it as fast as we could and as far as possible. We weren't really consciously trying to break any rules but we weren't paying any attention to them either. If we wanted to do a song that was going to be 20 seconds long then we'd do it – we didn't think there was any reason not to. The vocals for us went hand-in-hand with the distorted bass guitar, distorted guitars and hyper-fast drumming".

Reception

In 2009 From Enslavement to Obliteration was ranked number 1 in Terrorizer's list of essential European grindcore albums. Writer Jonathan Horsley described it as marking "the genre's perilous rite of passage through Britain's post-industrial urban landscape."

The Curse

The Curse is a free 7-inch extended play by the grindcore band Napalm Death, included in the initial copies of the From Enslavement to Obliteration LP, which was released through Earache Records in September 1988.

The cover uses the famous photograph of Phan Thi Kim Phuc fleeing a napalm attack, taken by Nick Ut.

Track listing

Trivia

Some LPs had a sticker with the following line printed on it: "We wanted to be the biggest rock band in the world and you don't do that sounding like Napalm Death" Joe Elliot (Def Leppard)

Grindcore band Sore Throat included a track called "From Off License to Obliteration" on their 101-track 1988 album Disgrace to the Corpse of Sid, also released on Earache Records.