NAPALM DEATH

Scum is peculiar not only for being the landmark of grindcore, but it is also the beggining of a highly sophisticated, and underestimated, form of music. I think that grindcore and free jazz have a lot in commom. They both are apparently disorganized, annoying noise. They have no melodic lines whatsoever, and have a lot of dissonant and twisted sounds. They both use detuned or downtuned instruments, and they do not respect the pentatonic scale. It's atonic music for deranged ears! Actually it's the kind of music that takes some time to be digested and understood (both free Jazz and grind).

This record made Napalm famous for being extreme, for being the extremest shit around, a fame that the band somewhat resents nowadays. Shane Embury already comented that he doesn't want people to be around saying: "Napalm Death? Oh yeah! I know them! Total noise freaks aren't them?". Probably the tongue-in cheek aspect of it has left him a little upset. He doesn't want the band to be a joke... But who cares? Both me and you, we know that it is good, and we know that the band has gone forward and changed. Fuck people if they can't listen and see that. Let them grab their stereotypes if that makes them happy.

Anyway (I'm losing my fucking point here) musically speaking Scum is very raw. The production is what you might expect from the band's first record. It's the traditional kind of production used by eighties hardcore bands (nothing like the DDD Offspring/Greenday crap that infest the radios nowadays). The songs are extermely short and fast, it is actually much more aggressive than brutal, since the prodution is not that good. The guitar's distortion is not very heavy, but it is actually muddy and noisy, fast and to the throat. The whole album can be resumed with the track "You Suffer" which lasts for about 0.7 seconds. A blast beat line, a charge of sound, that's it. It's a bit dadaistic too, the apparent chaos of it. It has a lot of energy, and the songs work perfectly in the live mosh pit.The title song also represents the concept of the album well. A furious blast beat followed by a slow, dense and heavy middle part. Total thrash and power.

The lyrics (check out the lyrics page) are not very original. Traditional punk anthems, addressing the world's problems: genocide, polution, overpopulation, injutice, social chaos, etc. Nick and Justin wrote the lyrics when they were very young and were very much influenced by the period I think, it doesn't sound that different from you average hardcore band complaining about the world. Lee Dorrian didn't write anything on this record, since he got in just on time to record his vocals, not to write, so his work as a lyricist can only be appreciated on the next album. But, even if they are not that original, they are quite well written and tastefully done.

Scum influenced a whole new generation of metal/hardcore bands, and definitely was one of the release that made grindcore and death metal more popular in the early nineties. It's influence is enormous, going from japanese electronic outfits and hardcore bands to new-wave Jazz musicians like John Zorn. As Justin Broadrick and Nick Bullen said when they were in the band, "it is the end of music as you know it.

Joaquim C. Ghirotti (courtesy of Twisting the Knife (Slowly) website)

As a rallying call for what seemed like millions of bands to follow, not to mention the launching point for the varying careers of Justin Broadrick, Nick Bullen, Mitch Harris, Lee Dorrian, and Bill Steer, Scum deserves its reputation alone. But it's also fun to listen to — a strange word to use, but no doubt about it, the album has its own brand of rock & roll kicks taken to an almost ridiculous extreme. Split between the original lineup, with Broadrick and Bullen, and the next one, with Dorrian, Steer, and Shane Embury, Scum is a portrait of a place, time, and state of mind. Opener "Multinational Corporations" is the deep breath taken before the plunge: skittering cymbals, low-key feedback squalls, Bullen's rasped hatred — and then all hell breaks loose. The riffs by both the Broadrick/Bullen and Steer/Embury teams use hyperconcentrated Black Sabbath-via-Motörhead-and-Metallica approaches as starting points, but the moorings are cut loose when everyone concentrates on nothing but speed itself. The combination of hyperspeed drums, crazed but still just clear enough guitar and bass blurs, and utterly unintelligible vocals takes the "loud hard fast rules" conclusion to a logical extreme that the band's followers could only try to equal instead of better. Interspersed throughout all this on various songs are more obviously deliberate constructions — parts of the title track, say, or the focused chug-and-stomp start of "Siege of Power." They act as just enough pacing for the rampages elsewhere, where unrelenting, intense sound becomes its own part of weird ambient music, textures above all else. It's little surprise the free jazz/noise wing latched onto Scum as much as wound-up-as-hell headbangers did worldwide. That practically no song survives past two minutes — much less one — is all part of brusque do-the-job-and-do-no-more appeal. The most legendary number as a result: "You Suffer (But Why?)," running at a mere two seconds.

Ned Raggett (courtesy of All Music Guide website)