Napalm Death’s Mitch Harris Warns That New Defecation Releases Are a “Total Scam”

Well, this is certainly bizarre.

Defecation, for those who don’t remember, is a grind band that started as a side project for Napalm Death members Mitch Harris and Mick Harris. Their first album, Purity Dilution, was released in 1989; then, in 2003, long after Mick Harris left Napalm Death, Mitch Harris made a second Defecation album, Intention Surpassed, on his own. And that was the last anyone heard from the band…

…until December, when a label called Metal Bastard Enterprises announced the impending release a new Defecation 7″ EP, Reborn. More exciting still, in February, Metal Bastard announced a new Defecation full-length, Killing with Kindness.

Now, Metal Bastard Enterprises has the Internet’s shittiest website — none of the links even work! — and a few aspects of this announcement probably should have struck people as being fishy right away (Why wasn’t Mitch Harris promoting these releases? How come there wasn’t so much as a press release making the announcement? And who announces an album just a couple of weeks before its release, anyway?). But the label has at least one legitimate release with the well-respected Terrorizer, so it’s easy to see how consumers might have shrugged these concerns off.

Those consumers, we now know, got took. Mitch Harris has taken to Napalm Death’s Facebook page to make it clear that neither he nor Mick Harris have anything to do with either of these releases:

“People keep asking but – I AM NOT INVOLVED, this is NOT official.

“How could someone just claim the name and logo without permission?

“I did not record this material, nor did Mick Harris (as far as I am aware.)

“People need to know about this because this label Metal Bastard Enterprise (Ex-Turbo Records) is very fraudulent in every way.

“They scammed small, unknown underground bands too.

“I feel sorry and apologize for anyone who may have lost money buying this crap.

“I cannot believe that Nuclear Blast and other labels would openly distribute this through Universal. It’s Sacrilege…

“Here is a link if you’d like to preview some guitar played on keyboard with bag pipe guitar solos, drum machine and voice processer, ahahahaha.

“Not me, sorry, Even with the Napalm Death title ‘Killing With Kindness’ & Sargent-D artwork.

“However, I do have something exciting coming soon. Please share. Thank you.”

It’s true: someone actually recorded two fake Defecation releases. That’s the not the kind of scam we usually hear about, where someone releases music they have no right to release and tries to pawn it off as authorized. That is above and beyond, near-Threatin-level shit. The work ethic would almost be admirable, if the endgame wasn’t so dick.

Adding insult to injury, Metal Bastard is apparently aware of Mitch Harris’ statement, because they’re cracking wise about it on Instagram (screencap here if it gets yanked down):

https://www.instagram.com/p/BwFDBN7puxt/

So who the heck is running Metal Bastard Enterprises? The label claims to be based in Ibiza, Spain; meanwhile, Mitch Harris says it’s the same guy who used to own the now-defunct German label, Turbo. I dunno where he got that info from, but I’ll take his word for it. The label seems to have put out at least one legitimate Terrorizer release, which just makes all of this more confusing, because there’s no way of knowing which parts of their catalogue are bullshit.

We’ll keep trying to figure out what’s going on here. But just know that there’s no new Defecation releases out there right now. Sorry.