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British grindcore band Napalm Death is set to bring its unforgiving brand of extreme metal to Jakarta for its third show in the country in just six years.

The foursome — which at the moment is made up of Mark Greenway on vocals, Shane Embury on bass, Mitch Harris on guitars and Danny Herrera on drums — will perform on June 28 at the Bulungan Outdoor venue in Blok M.

The band’s previous concerts in the capital attracted hordes of dedicated metalheads from across the country, ranging from kids and teenagers just entering a prepubescent love affair with metal to veteran headbangers who have followed the band since its caterwauling birth in 1981.

With 30 years and numerous line-up changes under its belt, Napalm Death is considered one of the progenitors of the heavy metal subgenre known as grindcore, which, as the name suggests, is built on relentless, grinding grooves and caveman riffs — a far cry from the tamer branches of heavy metal, leaving zero room for subtlety.

With vocals that were growled and screeched rather than sung, grindcore became an alternative for metalheads who craved a more extreme form of noise. It found its peak in popularity in the mid-1980s.

With the genre’s roots in the underground music subculture (which was built on tape-trading and self-promoted basement shows), grindcore was one genre that managed to bridge the gap between the do-it-yourself hardcore and punk scenes and heavy metal.

“That’s the reason they are still considered relevant instead of old hat,” says Yani Pandjaitan, a 39-year-old fan who has listened to the band since the early 1980s.

Yani says the current crop of younger, “trendy metal” acts have nothing on the original acts like Napalm Death because of a lack of “true connection” with their audience.

“Napalm Death built their following at a time when MTV and the mainstream media ignored them,” Yani says, adding that most Napalm Death and old-school grindcore fans are a part of “one big metal family that can’t be broken.”

In that sense, Napalm Death’s Indonesian concerts seem to succeed largely due to nostalgia, with younger fans being introduced by their black-clad parents or older siblings.

“I still think it’s pretty balanced [between newer and older fans], although perhaps there is slightly a bigger number of older metalheads at their concerts,” says Ricky Siahaan from the popular Jakarta-based metal band Seringai.

However, Ricky, who is also an associate editor at Rolling Stone Indonesia, thinks the lower number of younger fans might be due to how unfriendly and inaccessible grindcore often sounds in comparison to other forms of heavy metal.

An extreme example would be Napalm Death’s own 1.316-second claustrophobic blast, “You Suffer,” which won the band a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the shortest song ever recorded.

“As one of the originators of the genre, however, even non-diehard fans might come just for the sake of the moment,” Ricky says.

With 14 full-length albums — most of which are considered classics of the genre — the band’s relevance to the grindcore scene and the wider world of extreme music is unquestionable, at least for the country’s headbanging crowd.

Ricky also praised the band’s DIY roots.

“They’ve got all the right elements that fit just right with the country’s militant metalheads,” he said.

Napalm Death
3rd Grinding Indonesia 2011
Tuesday, June 28
Bulungan Outdoor, South Jakarta
From 5 p.m. until 10 p.m.
Tel. 021 7369 0918
Tickets from Rp 130,000 ($15)