At the time, in England, hardcore thrash was a form that came from elsewhere and was a very minority interest. Even among many heavy metallers, it wasn't even really seen as music at all. You know, "There's no tunes. You can't sing along to that." Many of those bands would also ape American bands, so you'd have bandanas and check shirts and Converse sneakers and talk about things being "rad" and "gnarly". We didn't do that. We fused our particular interests and took tiny elements from different groups and different movements.
Nicholas Bullen interview, The Arts Desk, 2017
I think that in itself was fresh. We also did it with a dedication which I think set us apart from a lot of the bands in Britain at the time. The speed element was also of interest to people. Although, initially it was a very negative thing for those people that would shout abuse at us or leave the room. But that wasn't really an issue for me at all.
Not the 1988 album, which, contentiously, only shares the name. This earlier incarnation of NAPALM DEATH - Nicholas "Nik Napalm" Bullen, Mick Harris, and Justin Broadrick (GODFLESH) - recorded the From Enslavement to Obliteration demo on this day in 1986. "In 4 hours at Flick 8 Track, Birmingham. No Expense Spared!"
Several songs from this demo were re-recorded in August 1986 for NAPALM DEATH's next demo, Scum. Initially intended as a split with ATAVISTIC, the Scum demo would eventually be used for side A of the Scum LP released in July 1987, after the depature of both Nik Bullen and Justin Broadrick.
Well, the old demo [From Enslavement...] was a little out of date in terms of speed and songs that we have dropped. So me and Jus saved up to go back into a better studio and record the 12 songs, old & new, that we had. The result of the demo was very pleasing and our best effort yet, so we decided to send it off to different small labels with the hope of getting somethingput down on vinyl. Anyway's couple of days later Jus had a letter from Shane at Manic Records saying that he wanted to release it as a split-LP with ATAVISTIC. Now we are waiting to hear from him to give us the go-ahead for an LP cover design etc., so I can't really say when it will be released.
Mick Harris / Napalm Death interview, Phoenix Militia #7, 1987