“Thank you, thank you my friends”. In between songs, short-haired Mark ‘Barney’ Greenway looks and sounds like a charming English larrikin, the kind your mother would invite around more often if he’d just stop dropping the F word so much. What he doesn’t look or sound like is the lead singer of the band that invented the grindcore genre, some quarter of a century ago.

That is, until the next song starts. Then Shane Embury, Mitch Harris, and Danny Herrera join Greenway and become the punk-infused thrashing metal unit that is Napalm Death, a singular entity of squealing instruments and growling vocals and a lot of flailing arms and legs.

Back in Australia for the first time in eleven years, Napalm Death are touring in support of their 13th studio album, Smear Campaign, released last year. While none of the UK band’s actual founders are still involved, the current members are four-fifths of the lineup playing on the past 10 albums (the missing fifth being guitarist Jesse Pintado, who passed away in 2006).

While support came from Australian grindcore act Blood Duster on the east coast, in Perth it was up to locals Maximum Perversion and Extortion to prime the crowd. Extortion’s set was made up of their short, fast songs – many under a minute in length, some considerably so – while Maximum Perversion filled the remaining time until the main event with chaotic, sample-heavy songs.

Then it was time. Napalm Death took to the stage and assaulted the near-capacity Amplifier with furiously fast tracks from the band’s recent releases, including 2005’s The Code is Red… Long Live the Code and 2002’s Order of the Leech. Greenway, well-known for being vocal about his political views and vegetarianism, paused between songs to talk to the crowd, at one point taking some time to explain the anti-religious sentiment behind their current release.

Songs from the early and mid 1990s, a time when the band was especially prolific, were followed by some very early material: Scum, the title track from the seminal 1987 release, and the lightning fast You Suffer (Guinness World Record holder for the shortest recorded song, at just 1.316 seconds).

Considering the difficulties posed by moving on and off the stage at the Amplifier, the band elected to stay on stage rather than leave and return for their encore, which comprised a cover version of Dead Kennedys’ Nazi Punks Fuck Off and some more material from Smear Campaign.

Perth has seen many classic and influential metal bands tour in the past year – from extremists like Cannibal Corpse, Obituary and Slayer to more mainstream acts like Black Sabbath. Napalm Death’s show on Tuesday proves they are one of the few that remain truly relevant in the present time.