NAPALM DEATH — Scum (review)

NAPALM DEATH — Scum album cover Album · 1987 · Grindcore Buy this album from MMA partners
2/5 ·
Time Signature
Sucess?...

Genre: grindcore

One of the strange bastard children of metal and punk is grindcore, and "Scum" is one of the most important grindcore releases of all time, a seminal release in both grindcore and death metal - very much like Carcass' "Reek of Putrfaction".

As other reviewers have pointed out before me, this album is at lease as much a punk release as a metal release. While ther eis a lot of metal-like riffage on this album and blastbeats galore (there are even elements on the first half of the album which seem derived from hard rock, and, in addition, there are some Hellhammer/Celtic Frost-sounding breakdowns hither and thither), the DIY approach to production and the focus on expression rather than performance is very punky (and there are also a lot of simpler hardcore punk-like riffs). In addition the politically and socially aware lyrics were also more typical of punk music than metal music at the time.

Productionwise, the album is sloppy all the way through - especially the the tracks recorded by the Dorrian-fronted line-up. But at least it came out better than "Reek of Putrefaction"; "Reek..." is musically more interesting though. The bass is ridiculously distorted and everything sounds messy all the way through on "Scum", but that is, of course, considered a quality among punk music fans. The vocals are more interesting on the second half, as Dorrian experiments more with grunting, growling and screaming, while Nick Bullen mostly just yells, using the same rhythmic patterns all the way through.

Amidst all the noise, there are some very cool riffs, breakdowns and changes which make this album interesting for other reasons than its historic value, and, of course, this being political grindcore, the lyrics actually have something to say, which might be worthwhile (well, read the lyric sheets, because I don't think you'll be able to decipher them otherwise).

This is not a very good album in terms of musical quality. I like the expressive value and the outbursts of rage of the frantic blasting short tracks, and the energy of the more hardcore punkish midpaced tracks and breakdowns. And, then it's of course an extremely important album in the history of grindcore and metal. I think those factors warrant at least two stars.
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Time Signature wrote:
more than 2 years ago
BTW, one positive thing about this album is the cover art. Great work by Jeff Walker there!
Time Signature wrote:
more than 2 years ago
We agree then :-)
UMUR wrote:
more than 2 years ago
I´ve actually written a review that´s in my backlog of this album. Not much different from yours I´m afraid.

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