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Napalm Death - Scum

The age old debate - 58%

Annable Courts, April 7th, 2023

Ah, the all important "does important mean good" question. Yes, yes. Well the answer is... no, it doesn't. So that takes care of that, then. Well alright, let's explore this little area of musical debate here. It probably deserves a bit of an unpacking. A simple image representation: a bridge needs to be built (so that's all of extreme metal) and in the early days, along comes one of the foundational blocks (Napalm Death) that would turn out to be what allowed the bridge to begin its construction, that is, the area the first people could step and rely on to continue further development of the overall structure (the later death and grind bands). Now: does that mean that foundational block is beautiful, in and of itself; or rather, that its role and concept are beautiful - in a way detached from the thing in itself ? It may be a very ordinary looking piece of material when taken on its own and looked at closely independently from the rest, but in the bigger picture, it's so much more than "ordinary". But then, how much credit might one be giving the part of the bridge that's the overarching principle, really, rather than the actual object being assessed, right here before us ? Are these songs, when taken one by one, so brilliant they would warrant a place in the pantheon of composition ?

If so: where are the riffs, the catchy clever bits, the memorable sections ? This is indeed innovative - but it could've been innovative and really good. The band would grow tremendously after this. Here, they're more of a historical document. And it's rare you'd find yourself watching an old documentary with as much excitement and enjoyment as you would some of your favorite films. It's informative, and it's the real original thing. But in a way it's going to always come across as cold and distant, almost like it relates to a different time, with fundamentally different motivations and goals. This is straight up grindcore, from 1987: it's got the blast beats, the maniacal power chords driving in every which direction and extreme vocals performed on top, and the songs last about 10 seconds. Maybe less. But this meant something totally different in these days, than it does now, and in that sense it's a bit like watching a TV series from multiple decades ago that focused on the political climate or news of that time: however interesting, it just doesn't translate in today's world, and isn't timeless, because its endeavor was too generational in scope.

This doesn't offer a whole lot any other good grindcore since then can offer. It's just these guys did it first. Which is something, and must be recognized for it. But appreciating the historical significance of an album doesn't straight away equate with putting it on a pedestal, just because it is very old and seminal. There's hardly a point (except maybe 'Scum' or the 2 second long 'You suffer') where the music offers anything different from what's been played already, and what's about to play ahead. And the music surely prides itself on that: it is absurd and purposely chaotic, if not simply grotesque, in that it enjoys its musical aimlessness, and mindless anarchy which is the one and only point being made at all. This is minimalist, extreme noise punk that gets a high from the absolute auditory catastrophe it causes. It wouldn't have had it any other way. The goal was to break your ears, whoever you were, releasing a load of tension and angst, as a platform for sociopolitical messages (think song titles like 'Prison without walls') as warning signs modern society is failing.

Again, it is more about the overall significance of the album, than about the music note for note, and pound for pound. What is the overall product, then ? Mediocre, if not braindead music, that does carry a strong message, which combination yields a somewhat powerful result. It's just difficult to listen to, however extreme one's taste in music might be, as it very quickly can feel unnecessary to spend a whole half an hour on. Music, especially metal music, needs to be more than a narrative. Point taken, though. This is surprisingly extreme for its release date, and the scene needed to start somewhere and unbeknownst to them, these guys made a sizeable contribution. Much better music to follow in later releases, certainly.

Grindcore Is Not Death Metal / Hardcore Is Not Violence! - 8%

Merciless tian, July 24th, 2022
Written based on this version: 1987, Cassette, Earache Records

My first approach to metal was direct with Metallica, Iron Maiden, and Sepultura at 10 years old. I was fortunate to have older relatives who owned collections of hundreds of cassettes, CDs, underground metal magazines, and all kinds of paraphernalia that made me hallucinate at that age with the metal genre. At school, I was privileged to be surrounded by people who had been involved in heavy metal for years, so at the age of 12 I was already a connoisseur of bands that today are classified as "essential classics".

But one day... a boring Sunday afternoon in the year 2001. A friend came home and gave me the Napalm Death "Scum" cassette. I wasn't able to hear even half of it. for me, it was a disaster, nonsense, so I passed this album and didn't pay attention to it again. But 5 years later, I tried to give it a chance, already more familiar with this genre called "Grindcore", but I just couldn't stand it. I couldn't hear it completely. For me, there were better bands from the same era and the same style, but better executed, such as Repulsion, Nausea, Carcass, Terrorizer, etc., etc.

This album, "scum", fails in several aspects that are minimal to make this something enjoyable at least. Given that the genre is not known for producing polished productions, is this album a shambles in terms of mixing?. drums sometimes sound, but other times they get lost between the roar of the bass and the guitar, The voice doesn't even sound brutal or chaotic, it just sounds like a bad hardcore singer. Everything is badly mixed here. The cymbal set sometimes has more prominence than the rest of the instruments, not to mention the damn echo of the bass.

I know that this album is divided into two parts with different formations, but I was able to listen to it in its entirety and draw my own conclusions. I must say that it is complete rubbish, too amateurish to be enjoyed. Those were lousy riffs, even for a 14-year-old starting out to record their first demos. I know there are people who say they love this album, but no one really enjoys it when listening to it (I can tell). It's not even a "revolutionary" album; there were already bands doing the same thing a couple of years before like: Siege and Infest.
The fact that there were contemporary bands to Napalm Death that did the same style but in a better way and with more interesting themes than what "scum" represents. It makes me wonder... how the hell did such a bad album become a classic for some?.
Once I was walking to work through an old alley and I read on the wall of a factory a graffiti that said: "grindcore is not death metal, hardcore is not violence" and this album came to my mind. Clearly, "Scum" has nothing to do with Death Metal and is more related to punk, hardcore, and political positions that serve as incentives for hypocritical teenagers with identity crises and sexual frustrations.

I swear to God, I know several Napalm Death fans and none of them really enjoy listening to this slop. There's nothing really metal here, and you can find more riffs and metal solos on UK.Subs albums than on "Scum".
To be fair with my final sentence, I must say that what Napalm Death wanted to do with "Scum" is better achieved in "From Enslavement to Obliteration", which is not to my liking either. This leaves me with "Harmony Corruption".

A sweet start and a bittersweet end - 80%

felixrr, July 20th, 2022

Ah yes, Napalm Death's Scum, seen by many as the record when it comes to early grindcore. It's a bit more complex than the age-old debate of what was truly the first death metal album, Seven Churches or Scream Bloody Gore, since one can't look over the punk scene that grind mainly draws from. Looking over it is exactly what I will have to do, however, since I am not particularly familiar with the topic. When it comes to the "metal side" of grind, it mostly boils down to Scum vs. Horrified. The latter, while being recorded a few weeks earlier, wouldn't be properly released until 1989, when other acts like Carcass, Terrorizer and Fear of God had already put in their 2 cents worth. Back to Scum however, its two sides were recorded almost a year apart by two completely different lineups that just happened to share the iconic crinkled logo of Napalm Death. I have to mention here that the era of vastly different lineups was far from over for this particular band…

I will eventually get to the elephant in the room, but let's begin with the 1986 side A. First off, I am a huge sucker for intros, whether they introduce an album or even just a longer track. Multinational Corporations is in my eyes a perfect overture to grindcore as a whole. I still remember first hearing the cymbals and the subtle melody, which fades wonderfully into the omnipresent distortion and the chanted vocals that just build the tension perfectly. If this is your grindcore premiere, the thoughts in your head should be: this is going to be one hell of a genre!

What follows is a flurry of eleven other tracks, and most of them are, as expected, just raw grind. Distorted, primitive guitars, fuzz bass, oppressive drums, grizzly vocals. Yet with enough structure to still feel thought-through amidst the chaotic riffs and blast beats. Slower sections offer some breathing room, and even the lyrics can be distinguished on rare occasions. Speaking of them, they are mostly what one would expect, dealing mostly with big corporates, government control and exploitation of the poor and the Earth alike. Two tracks that stand out are the surprisingly well structured Siege of Power, spanning just over four minutes, and the closing (in)famous You Suffer, its exact opposite.

Now comes the part where you flip the LP, if you have one. Hold onto your hats because you're in for a big surprise, and I'll leave it up to you whether it's a pleasant one. Not for me, sadly. The overall sound settles much more in the lower frequencies, due to multiple reasons. The guitars have a more "grinding" tone to them, with the less audible overdriven bass supporting underneath. The hi-hats no longer sound particularly crisp, either. A major shift happened in the vocal section, too, which is now more akin to the classic death metal growl and even the little signs of actual words are pretty much absent.

As to what has stayed or changed for the better, the unique feel of primordial grind is still very much present, albeit in a much less dynamic sounding package than what the first side had to offer. Those who care about lyrics and look them up will find out they naturally follow the spirit of side A, but feel less straighforward and more thought out. As for the guitar work, I find it more than respectable, with some great riffs and groovy sections. If it existed alone, few would say that the side B is somehow inferior. As it stands, I consider it weaker, but not by a huge margin.

Overall, this record remains an undisputable classic of early grind – coarse, dirty, imperfect but undeniably influential.

It's not Perfect But it's Amazing! - 87%

Echobreather, May 7th, 2022

EDIT: When I first wrote this review then I thought that this review is terribly inconsistent and a bit hard to understand. So I decided to edit it a bit and I hope that now it is better to understand for everyone. I probably didn't need to write this paragraph but I'm going to keep it anyway, because I might as well, you know?

When it comes to grindcore people usually start off with this album. But I think that is for the wrong reasons. It seems (to me at least) that people are claiming this the first grindcore album mainly because of the A side. But I personally think the B side of this rules more than the A side, and I also think that F.E.T.O. ("From Enslavement To Obliteration" for those who don't know grind as well as I do) is the album that really defined grindcore. "Scum" might have started it, but ND's next album is really where the genre really broke new grounds.

The A side is different from the B side. Everybody already knows this. The A side was actually intended to be a part of a split record with the hardcore band Atavistic at first, and it was eventually scrapped, for some reason. But then, people (either Earache or the band) decided to include that recording with this album. I think that's a bit of a shame, because I think the production value on that side would've been a lot better, if they just re-recorded it. And I firmly believe that this is the reason people claim this album to be inconsistent. Now enough of me explaining my opinions! Let's get to the actual music! But for that I have to explain each side separately.

Okay, starting off with the A side, this was originally recorded as a demo. You can even tell on the actual album that this sounds like a demo. The guitars here sound pretty nice and heavy, and there's more solos here than on the B side. Also, the solos on this side are more of mocking glam metal solos, and there also aren't that many of them here. The drums are nice and punchy, but also they're pretty sloppy, seems that Mick was not quite in his drumming prime yet. The bass is more often revealed here and can actually be heard underneath the other instruments. Some people say it sounds like the bass on Repulsion's "Horrified" (a.k.a. "Slaughter of the Innocent"), but the bass there was more fizzy, here it sounds like complete sludge, in a very good way. Nik's and Justin's vocals are more like barks than anything else, and they don't really evolve, which makes it a bit of a bummer. But again, this side has still got lots of punk in it so it really doesn't matter, the B side is where shit really goes down (downtown!). The riffs are very much punk and don't really have much else going for them, besides a few thrash riffs, but that doesn't make them crap, and they don't repeat themselves too much either. Personally I think the A side is brought down by the production and the sloppiness of the band, and also the lack of lyrics. The B side was sloppy too, but at least there they managed to get a hang of things. All songs on this side in my opinion were good, but the songs that are kind of boring are "Caught in a Dream", "Polluted Minds", and "Born on Your Knees". The other songs are good. Not brilliant, but good. I wouldn't claim "Multinational Corporations" to be a song though, personally I think it's rather the intro track to the album. And also this side features the infamous "You Suffer". I will NOT get deeper into that. That has been done millions of times before.

The B side. THIS is where the band REALLY found their potential. Kicking off things with "Life?" and BANG! We are in for some pure fucking skull cracking, rib smashing, bone crushing GRINDCORE! This side is WAY more groundbreaking than the A side. Yeah, the year is 1987 so it sounds a tad bit shit, but it still has the soul and power that was possible around the time. The guitar is less heavy, but sounds a lot better and ominous than on the A side. There's also practically no solos, except for "Parasites", and it sounds rather intentionally shitty. Or Bill just didn't know yet how to play a solo, or better yet write one. The bass here is less revealing itself, and it's also a bit weaker. It's kind of fuzzy, but also low-end friendly, it does get buried in the mix, but at least it does a decent job at supporting the guitars. I do also have to compliment Jim's lyricism. Later on that though. The drums are way more consistent, and Mick Harris (who was featured on both sides) can blast faster here than he could on the A side. He managed to improve a lot in 8 months! Yes, that was the time between both of the recording sessions! The vocals here, delivered by the future Cathedral frontman, Lee Dorrian, are more of punk based yells than his distinct future growls. But the growls are still here too (occasionally) and this side also appears to have shrieks unlike the A side. Now look, I don't have a problem with the A side of this album, but I just want to get the differences between the two sides out of the way as much as I can. Back to the music. The production is also really good here, again, better than A side (I can see this becoming a joke), but maybe not keen enough of the low-end, but it does sound more serious, and more like an album. This side however SMASHES the A side, not because it sucked, but because the production and musicianship was inferior to the B side. The riffs this time are mostly death/thrash oriented riffs, but the punk riffs occasionally tend to slip themselves in here too. Again, they're not repetitive, so if you're all about riffs, this album has them. All the songs on this side are pretty great. The less great tracks are "Point of No Return", "Negative Approach", "Pseudo Youth", "As the Machine Rolls On", "Common Enemy", and "M.A.D.". Otherwise these songs are brilliant.

Let's dissect the lyrics a bit. The lyrics here are more of anti-capitalist, sociopolitical commentary that was making huge rounds in the thrash and hardcore punk scene in the 80s. The A side's lyrics are more cheesy (at least in the way of phrasing), whilst the B side's lyrics seem to be more thought through and sophisticated. The A side seems to have lyrics that are telling the point of the lyrics out right away, while the lyrics on side B are trying to be more poetic and more thought-provoking, and actually sound more intelligent. You might not care about this too much, but personally I look deeper into song lyrics. So I just made an essay (I guess?) about the lyrics on this album, for those who look deeper into song lyrics as well.

This album might be viewed as inconsistent, but this review will probably get the same treatment! But one can only hope, right? I think this album is brilliant, but I don't think it defined the genre. That's next album. That doesn't mean THIS album isn't fun to listen to! Opposite, it's really fucking fun! From start to finish! I might have flamed the A side of this, but it still is great. I personally just prefer side B. And I think people should look a bit deeper into the B side too. Again, not that the A side sucked, but because the B side is overlooked in my opinion.

This is a landmark in grindcore, it is a classic, a masterpiece, JUST not the greatest thing ever. If you want to get into grindcore, find new music to listen to, or just looking for something to listen to because you don't have anything smarter to do, then by all means, check this album out! This has got energy, anger and pure headbanging tendencies going on through-out the entire thing. You will definitely not regret listening to this. I'm confident anyone who is okay with a bit of inconsistency will enjoy this.

And that's it. I have nothing more to say here. Except one old stanza... EXCEPT THE END! ACCEPT THE END?

Two Sides of a Killer Coin - 80%

sunn_bleach, November 29th, 2021
Written based on this version: 2002, CD, Earache Records

Calling Scum Napalm Death's debut album is only the ostensible truth. As is well-documented, the band who plays on the first half is almost completely different from that on the second half, the only exception being drummer Mick Harris. By that point, Napalm Death didn't even have any founding members left; over time, they would become one of those rare cases in music where the non-original members end up being the most recognizable line-up.

Scum is often derided by modern listeners as being inconsistent or haphazard - so this context is important. Rather than an LP, Scum must be seen as two albums from two different recording sessions almost a year apart. Not treating them this way invites the schizoid impression. The first side was originally released as a demo in August 1986, whereas the second half was recorded in May 1987. If anything, what we know as Napalm Death's first studio release is actually a demo with sixteen bonus tracks from a completely different session! The band saw that their entire 1987 recording fit on one side, and the label placed the original demo on the first half with no changes.

What I'll call Scum 1 is full of grisly early death and thrash metal played to its logical extreme. Mick Harris called this style "grindcore" after Swans' debut album Filth, which he described to his bandmates as "grind". The side begins with a noise-esque intro that excoriates Thatcherite capitalism and waste - a theme that continues throughout the entire release through Nik Napalm's barks. It exudes dust and grime, with the bassy intro to the title track and the chaotic grooves on "Sacrificed" and "Siege of Power" showing to great effect. Justin Broadrick plays guitars - yes, the Justin Broadrick of Jesu, Godflesh, and fifty other bands - and he is surprisingly on-par for someone who by his own admittance couldn't play guitar before joining and was barely out of his mid-teens by the time of recording. Lots of Scum 1 features a rolling approach to riffs that demonstrates that "thrash and death on speed and speed", which is emphasized by Mick Harris's tapping of the hi-hats before launching into quadruple-speed. There's an interesting amount of restraint beforehand, rather than the gonads-forward kind of grindcore with which the band is now inseparable.

Side 2 is completely different - as to be expected when a band completely shakes up its members. Gone is the bass-heaviness and spacious, slightly reverbed first half. Scum 2 more fittingly bares the term "grind", as the guitars sound like they've been turned up high at the expense of most other instruments and have a crunchy sound like grinding gears (of big business, perhaps?). Lee Dorrian's screeches greatly contrast with Nik Napalm's comparatively low pitch, and Harris's drumming is like the first half sans the slow, groovy parts. Bill Steer's cacophonous solos have the "can they actually play?" aesthetic of early Kreator, which might surprise those who only know his melodic death metal output as a founding member of Carcass (yet shock nobody who's familiar with the band's early work).

Scum 2 is generally thought of as the weaker side. I don't think this is fair. They are two different albums that just so happen to share the same vinyl or tape. The juxtaposition is even weirder when it's a CD, as the act of manually turning over the vinyl doesn't happen and "You Suffer" (a good closer in its own right) immediately flips into the roaring "Life".

I encourage new and old listeners to listen to the two sides separately and treat them as such. When experienced that way, their strengths independently stand out instead of in contrast to each other.

Originally posted to RateYourMusic. Edited for Metal Archives.

Legendary masterpiece - 90%

terrr, August 21st, 2021

Art is the psyche of the artist conveyed into a medium, and from there, most of the time, to the appreciators of the art. Very often, great high art embraces themes of romantic emotions and invokes an impression of beauty in the appreciator, or in the case of music, the listener. Napalm Death's "Scum" is the closest that hardcore music has gotten to high art. In "Scum," Napalm Death expresses themes of intense political and social critique, as the great French philosopher Guy Debord has once implied that any piece of art must do so to be considered "great." They, however, didn't achieve this with romantic textures that convey hefty emotions to the listener in a cold or warm atmosphere of artistic beauty, Napalm Death did the exact opposite. Instead, they've created the perfect impression of the hell world they're very accurately describing in this album in the best way possible: With extreme abrasiveness and intense aggression. Considering the nature of Justin Broadrick and Nik Napalm's later works, this album probably could've been much more sophisticated than it is, but they deliberately avoided that path. For the best.

"MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS. GENOCIDE OF THE STARVING NATIONS."

The album starts off with its only non-chaotic section, the intro, "Multinational Corporations." The scraping sonic experimentation creates a hellish atmosphere, and it sets the mood for the album perfectly together with the rough spoken word track. From there, it smoothly segues into the endless chaos of the A-side of the album. "Instinct of Survival" and the following tracks establish the uncompromising, sheer brutality of the album, jumping from one intense riff to another, never staying in one theme. Nothing feels out of place, and the album flows very smoothly, never losing momentum. While great in quantity, all the songs longer than one minute in here are inherently unique, too. "Control" and "Siege of Power" are my favourites here. "Control" has the other and last section of sonic experimentation in the album, haunting the listener and finally perfectly and fully setting the "hell world" theme. The band should've expanded upon this with their follow-up record instead of creating "Scum B-Side, II." "Siege of Power" is essentially an example of what a full-length song sounds like in the true Napalm Death style and also is the second peak of the creativity in the riffs after the title track.

"YOU SUFFER, BUT WHY?"

And then the A-side of the album, the legendary masterpiece that forever changed the metal and hardcore landscape, with many other opuses created in its vein, ends. Upon flipping the record, you're met with the nu-Napalm Death. The reason it's so drastically different and much weaker than the A-side is that it was performed by a new roster of musicians after Nik Napalm and Justin Broadrick both departed in the middle of the making of this album. While I can appreciate that they were at least faithful to the style of the other half of this record, their attempt at imitating it is unsuccessful and rather weak, both musically and artistically. The perfect flow of the album is disrupted several times in the B-side, with the riffs not being as characteristic nor as brutal. It feels like they were trying to forcibly create fifteen minutes of material so that they could release this as a full-length record. Even the otherwise masterfully written lyrics are slightly degenerated, with songs like "Conservative Shithead" or "Stigmatized" playing juvenile tribalism instead of trying to unite the people against the menace destroying our society. Overall, though, it's not offensively bad. I still give it a spin every once in a while if I feel like it.

"...EXCEPT THE END - ACCEPT THE END?"

"Scum" is an album that's much unlike most of what it influenced. It's something that most albums of similar nature don't even come close to, it's art. It challenged musical conventions of creating an impression. It challenged the theme of "rebellious" music, with the most mature and truthful political and social critiques ever written as lyrics that are within it. This album is a true masterpiece of legendary stature.

My Scum Review for Dummies: Big Boy Syntax Simplified for Cro-Magnons - 90%

slaveraider, October 29th, 2020
Written based on this version: 2018, CD, Earache Records (Digipak)

This album has a lot of detractors from fans more attuned to the sound of Napalm Death's later efforts. Compared to their subsequent work, this debut sounds disorganized and cluttered. That's the point, raw aggression with as few frills as possible. None of Scum's detractors can discredit its influence. Widely considered the birth of grindcore, what Scum lacks in sophistication it makes up for in sheer exuberance. Lukewarm reviews of this album confound me. I'd expect reviews to be split between those calling it a classic, and those believing it to be an abomination on par with the worst atrocities ever committed by humans. Despite featuring two almost completely different lineups on each side, it's a remarkably cohesive and consistent collection of songs. If you dig the sound you should like the whole thing, if you don't, you should hate it.

However, there are a few variations between the two sides. Of the two sides, Side A is the more musical of the two, containing coherent riffs that are easier to follow than those of the second side. The second side frequently drifts into highly politicized noise, but with a youthful energy that is impossible to deny. Side A is generally considered the best of the two, which I find interesting since their sophomore album (recorded by the Side B lineup with a new bass player) is frequently ranked as better than either side of Scum. Highlights include the Guinness Book of World Record winner for shortest song ever, "You Suffer", the grooving grind title track, and the pounding "C.S." for a compelling drum sound.

If you're a fan of grindcore there's no reason you won't enjoy this album. It's prototypical, maybe even primitive in spots, but it feels as though a cheese grater is being run across your brain as you're listening to it. I presume that's the intended effect. It galvanizes me efficiently, and it should do the same for you if you're in tune with grindcore. Just don't expect melody, coherent structure, or any conceptual epic.

Starts good, but changes unexpectedly and unecessarily - 65%

deathmetal69_, May 27th, 2020

I never really cared that much at all for this album aside from standout tracks such as Multinational Corporations, Instinct of Survival, and Scum. I definitely prefer From Enslavement to Obliteration, and all the albums following it over this one. Scum isn't bad, in my opinion it's just flawed in some areas and not as colorful as the band's other albums.

This album is supposedly the "true pioneering force of grindcore", and I think that it's a pretty solid start for the genre. But my ONLY issue is that it's half good, half "what the hell happened???....."

Basically, Side A, the first album of this album; is great. It's full of energy, the guitars have a great sound that maintains a nice balance of relentless grinding and the ability to hear actual notes and melodies being played, and the drums have a cool, poppy, fulfilling sound. It isnt too solid nor too soft, it's just right. On the other hand with Side B, the second half; it's all fucked up. It's drastically different from the first half of the album. The guitars have lost their great sound, it instead sounds like some damn random gray wankery for the hell of "grindcore". It's sloppy as well, but pretty much the issue is that the guitars sound entirely different compared to the first half, I just dont understand why this happened. It sounds like some "brootal" demo or something.

Sure, the second half is quite some grindcore, but it's a drastic difference in comparison to the first half. You're just chilling and enjoying the music, and as soon as "Life?" comes on, you immediately notice the change, and it confuses you, leaves you thinking something along the lines of "uhhhh...what just happened? It's not that great anymore." The second half is definitely listenable, but compared to the first half it aint shit. So much greatness has dissapeared.

Pretty much what I'm trying to say is:
Side A: Awesome iconic grindcore that's fun, awesome, catchy, and has personality.
Side B: Sloppy, messy, demo ass material, wank-ish, gray noise grindcore for the hell of it.

This issue could've easily been prevented, I dont know why an entire half of the album has to sound different and not as good compared to the other, but oh well. If it all sounded like Side A I would have absolutely ZERO issues with Scum at all. This is definitely a great and iconic album, but one entire other half is different from the first half. I personally reccomend From Enslavement to Obliteration, it's much better and it doesn't change up it's sound. Scum is good, but it's half bland crap that appears out of nowhere, unfortunately. I'd give this a very high rating if such a drastic amount of the album wasn't the bad part, I dont want to give this such a low score that is 65%, but I have to since it consists largely of the not good side.

+65 for Side A
-35 for Side B

Required reading! - 80%

dfry, May 8th, 2018
Written based on this version: 2002, CD, Earache Records

A frenzy of battering percussion and wicked guitar riffs potent enough to suck the air out of a room, Scum took the metal world by storm for multiple reasons. It’s a sort of solar eclipse, capturing a time when Lee Dorian, Justin Broderick, Bill Steer, and Mick Harris were just four gutter punks looking to offend the masses, speeding over legends like Discharge and Extreme Noise Terror.

It’s also an important reference point for future grindcore releases, which over the years would become more and more complex in nature. Grindcore should sound like punk, a group of street bums abusing the hell out of guitar, bass and drums, barely holding it together. Today, grind is a drum clinic or space opera. Scum lays down the gauntlet: short, fast, guttural, and abrasive.

The numerous short songs are a more challenging listen than traditional death metal records. Much has been written about this album (essentially the first grindcore record, see Choosing Death for all the details), but few have touched on how impressive it is sonically. Steer’s guitar tone is so nasty and distorted, like the sound of a nuclear power plant melting down or some ugly machine belching along as workers frantically feed it with coal. The squealing, ear-shredding harmonics in “Siege of Power”, the burbling groove in “M.A.D”, and the filthy riff chain of “C.S” set against those pummeling drums. While it may not be everyone’s go-to death metal record, it’s still required reading for extreme metal fans the world over.

Yes, it can be influential and still not be good. - 55%

TheEndIsNigh, November 18th, 2017
Written based on this version: 2007, CD + DVD, Earache Records (Remastered)

It sounds like a stone-cast rule. It sounds like almost a prerequisite for classic status. A goddamned requirement. The key that'll open the gates to headbanging heaven. The last step to an album's apotheosis to eternal acclaim and absolute be-all-end-all importance within this vast ocean we love called heavy metal. It's what separates the leaders from the followers. The grand statements of the masters all must abide by it, right? What the hell would we put on our lists of greatest metal albums? Who would we turn to when asked what albums got us into metal initially? How would we answer questions like 'where were you when you first heard it' or 'what's the song that blew your mind the most?' What would be argue for hours over if it didn't follow this one thing? How would we decide, in our hearts and in our minds, what the ultimate metal albums are? When the aliens, millions of years from now, when they're finally bringing together all the information regarding music of the post-1970 ages, how would they know which albums to look to when chronicling the grand and very rad history or metal? How would any of this be possible if a supposedly classic album isn't GOOD?

Of course, there are the exceptions.

We must begin by addressing the most important factor as to why anyone still talks about Napalm Death's legendary 1987 debut record 'Scum' in any capacity. Yes, this really is one of the most influential and important albums in the history of metal. The Birmingham quartet of grind did what so few bands are able to right out of the gate: invent a new fucking genre. Yes, despite the bipolar, deeply flawed, inconsistent nature of this album hasn't dampened it's importance, it's influence, it's widespread appeal among metal and punk fans, or it's lasting appeal within the catacombs of underground music in general. It's really a fantastic feat. No one will deny that. And although this will be one of the few truly positive things I can say about this thing, I'll gladly hold this album in high regard for what it did for the further evolution and development of extreme metal and the genre it helped birth, grindcore. And I know, I know, Repulsion's debut record 'Horrified' did do a lot more for the genre, but we must face the fact that ND beat them to the punch by two years ('Horrified' was released in 1989). So yes, regardless of what comes next in the review, I stand by my belief, my goddamned conviction, that 'Scum' really is the original grindcore album and Napalm Death are the progenitors of the genre.

Alright, time to tear this fucker apart. I don't like it, and here's why.

Let me take you back to England's musical underground in the late 80's. Tape trading was in its prime, punk and metal fanzines sang praises of the fastest bands around, and you've been jamming a mixtape of bands from 'round the country. The best band is Napalm Death, hands down. They play the fastest, they're on the right side a.k.a. your side on all the big sociopolitical issues, and you just read in a fanzine that they've been signed to Earache Records, an upstart label that plans to release ND's debut album. Awesome shit, right? This was the peak of early extreme music, everything was about to blow the fucking scene out of the goddamn water. And it did. You've never heard anything like it. All of a sudden, Napalm Death are untouchable. 'Scum' has motherfucking arrived.

But then, years later, you go back and listen to it. And it's not as good as it once sounded. It doesn't rip like it used to. Makes sense, nothing stays gold forever. But what happens when you listen to something for the first time and it takes less than a year before it wears on you. No, seriously. That was me,

'Scum' is an odd record due to the drastically different approaches to the grind punk/metal style it personifies. It's an album that can't make it up its mind about how it wants to create this genre, but that's not the band's direct fault. One of the more unusual and well-known factoids surrounding this release is the fact that two different lineups play on it. On the A side, it's Nik Bullen on bass and vocals, Justin Broadrick on guitar, and Mick Harris on drums. It's far punk-ier than the B side, showing off Napalm Death's hardcore roots most prominently. If I had to choose a side that sounds the more consistently tolerable, this would be it. It feels tighter and better written, with the riffs hitting harder and the instrumentation being clearer and certainly more steeped in the punk side of grindcore. Fear not, the blast beats and growled vocals are here, but it certainly more a thrashcore sound rather than the straight-up grind of the opposite side. The riffing here isn't as metallic and tight, but it's more melodic (relatively) and has a sense of actual songwriting. But, it's still not great. The blast sections are noisy and can be tough to handle on repeated listening. It feels amateurish as well, like maybe some more tweaking of the material could've helped this record. Honestly, I think that if the A side was released on its own, it might've made for a solid cult punk album.

But now, we must discuss the B side.

Now I'll admit it, I did enjoy the B side more upon my initial listens of 'Scum,' mostly because if there's anything truly positive to take away from it, it's that this is what I think old school grindcore sounds like. But that positivity didn't last, as I slowly began to favour the A side more as time went on. The severely downtuned guitar work of Bill Steer and crisp blast beats of Mick Harris do have a gnarly quality to them, but they don't mesh well or compliment each other at all. Steer's an excellent guitar player, and I love his work with Carcass, but here his guitar playing lacks the technical edge that made me a fan of his in the first place. His tone is muddy, almost sludgy, and it comes off as fucking nothing against the drums, easily the best sounding instrument on this side even if the kicks are lud as hell and treble-heavy. The actual bass guitar here is almost nonexistent, buried under the drums and guitar. The songwriting feels lacking and less structured, as if there's more of a focus on taking a primitive death metal sound and filtering through hardcore riffing. It just feels ugly and lackadaisical. The production sounds more like a metal album, and if listened to by its lonesome, you'd swear you'd be hearing some shitty grindcore demo from the early 90's.

But then, there's the most laughable aspect of this whole album: the vocals. Unfortunately, neither side really comes out on top in terms of their respective vocalists. Nik Bullen's throaty growls squaring off with Lee Dorrian's ugly proto-gutturals. Both are unimpressive, but I'll begrudgingly come forward and say I do prefer Bullen to Dorrian. This may sound like hearsay for someone, for I did give Catherdral's debut album 'Forest of Equilibrium' a perfect 100%. And I stand by that. Dorrian's vocals are more suited for psyched-out doom than hard hitting grind. Here, he sounds ridiculous and it actually made the B side more laughable in hindsight. In that same hindsight, I do feel Bullen's vocals do work better in tandem with the sound. As I've made clear, the A side is far more a punk effort than the B side, and it's clear that the punk influence is present even in that vocal performance. It's not good, but it's far more fitting and suitable for the aggression on display on that side.

I must ultimately conclude that, while the album does have a few minor moments that I do get the occasional kick out of from time to time, 'Scum' just does not hold up. What was once a revolution in sonic brutality and the limits of fast, harsh metal sounds now comes off as painfully underwhelming. Unlike the early work of other bands in similar extreme veins, where the aggression and prowess was still somewhat present and has lifted those albums to a higher plane of acclaim, 'Scum' falls short with each passing year. However, unlike those releases, 'Scum's influence remains, surging and coursing through newer and younger bands who have grown up holding Napalm Death is the high regard, I must admit, they've earned. While I do admire this album for what it has done for music, I cannot say that I personally enjoy this album on any level similar to the one I did when I first heard this album.

Now then... time for a little bonus something.

Ok, so the version of 'Scum' I reviewed here is the 2007 remaster, which included a forty-or-so minute long documentary about the early days of Napalm Death and recording of 'Scum,' entitled The Scum Story. This documentary features Mick Harris, the only member to appear on both sides of the album, discussing his time with the band up to and a bit after 'Scum,' along with interviews with Earache head-honcho Digby 'Dig' Pearson, music journalists and artists of various kinds, discussing the impact of the album. Despite it's low-budge quality, and the fact that it pales in comparison to the Cathedral docs Return to the Forest and Ethereal Reflections, as well as the Carcass five-parter The Pathologist's Report, The Scum Story is still a fun watch for metalheads and fans of the album and band. This did a lot to help boost my rating for the album, because it really is a good forty-minute summary of Napalm Death's debut album and their ensuing ascension and cementing into metal history.

Edit: fixed some formatting in the final paragraph.

The VERY humble beginnings - 40%

AngryFudge, February 22nd, 2015
Written based on this version: 1994, CD, Earache Records

I'll say it bluntly: this album is garbage, but it's garbage that apparently inspired a lot of bands to make good music, so I guess that is why it's considered a classic.

Let's start off with the most important aspect about music: the songwriting. On this album, I doubt there ever was a songwriting process. Just take a look at the song lengths: there are 28 songs, and the album is 33 minutes long. There just is not enough substance you can get out of a song with an average length of roughly one minute. Buildup? Structure? None of this to be found here. The songs hardly consist of more than one or two riffs, if you can even call them riffs. It's mostly just a lot of fuzz with some stupidly fast, sloppy drumming on top. Listen to the first four songs and you can pretty much skip the rest of the album, because the songs all sound identical. “Instinct of Survival” for example consists of two parts: a groove-tinged mid-tempo riff and a fast blast-beat part typical for grindcore (a new thing back in '87). It's hard to differentiate between the songs because they are built and sound so similarly.

Napalm Death is mostly known for You Suffer, and this song is a total joke. A one second-long assault of the ears, leaving you wondering “what the hell was that?!”. The Kill, Parasites or Common Enemy, for example, aren't that different, just a tad longer, this time around 20 seconds of static with blast-beats. Parasites deserves a special mention though, because one of the guitarists (Bill Steer even, if I'm not mistaken) actually tries to do a tiny solo here... and man, does it sound crap. Just random notes played as quickly as possible, much like early Kreator. The title-track is probably the best song here, churning out some actually decent and catchy riffs. This just shows that this album is at its best when it's not actually trying to be as fast and brutal and possible, but rather when it decides to focus on these kind of riffs that Slayer write when they play slower songs.

One of the other (very few) redeeming factors are the lyrics, some of which are admittedly pretty good. Really well-written, intelligent lyrics that deal with globalisation, fascism, society and many other themes in a way that kind of reminds me of Discharge. But I fear that alone can't save this album...

The vocals are absolutely atrocious, very weak screams/growls/grunts, extremely monotonous and boring to listen to. I find it hard to believe that the great Lee Dorrian is associated with such awful music, but it seems he's on here and he just sounds as bad as the other vocalist, Nicholas Bullen. You can't really call this a Napalm Death album, because none of the present members, or people we connect to the name Napalm Death, for that matter, are present here. The actual musicians here do a terrible job, the guitar does overly simplistic, lame riffs consisting of two or three notes, the bass is distorted beyond belief and sounds like total shit (just listen to the intro of “Polluted Minds”) , and the drumming is, as already stated, sloppy at best. This is the very first grindcore album, and you can notice that immediately, the sound is hardly any better than your average shitty raw bedroom black metal project.

I fear this album hasn't aged well at all. I can imagine this was amazing when it first came out, because there (hardly) has been a band playing music this fast and raw before. This was the “peak” of hardcore punk and resulted in creating a brand new genre, grindcore. But now, as of today, this doesn't have a lot in store apart from the nostalgic factor and the lyrics maybe. I also think that the fatal flaw of this album is actually the production quality. It's hard to make out the actual riffs beneath the overpowering drums and unintelligible vocals and that's why this album fails so hard. So, get this if you're a die-hard Napalm Death and/or grindcore fan and you want to know the roots (or really like extremely raw and blunt music), but if you're not one of those, don't waste your time and money. I give this band credit for trying something so new and daring and I love Napalm Death, but this album is just not what you would want from them.

Scum - 70%

McTague97, January 4th, 2015

This is one of the first full length grindcore albums ever made. So what do you expect from it, are you expecting something so legendary that it saw the rise of a whole genre, or do you see the rough draft and blueprints of a genre that is waiting to be perfected? I personally saw this as the latter.

In every way it sticks very closely to its punk roots, in fact the influences of punk outweigh the influences of metal by a considerable margin. The basic simplicity, the pure raw power, many DIY (do it yourself) aspects, the extremely short song lengths. All of these commonly associated with hardcore punk. The whole existence of the music itself can be summed up to trying to blurt out your political views in the loudest and angriest form possible. Any semblance of songwriting comes second to the expression of ideas and emotions. It is however very heavy and that by itself is inevitably going to draw the attention of metalheads.

The vocals are all about this style that is somewhere between a growl and a shout. He rarely ceases to use it, like growling it can be tricky making out what is being said, but for those with the patience or a lyric book you'll find the lyrics are very typical to the hardcore punk scene.

The production is about as muddy as it gets. The guitars are done mostly done in the lower range and have the sole purpose of being heavy and loud. The sound that is generated is very deep and very fast. The riffing is simple. Again very reminiscent of punk. Every once in awhile though they throw in a solo that shows quite a bit of skill, enough so to show that the man has a fair level of instrumental mastery (Parasites).

The bass is mostly drowned out. The tuning on the guitar is low enough that rather then merely rounding out the sound (which it still does) it adds in its own 'melodic' layer (Prison Without Walls). When he pokes his way through the production to a point where he can clearly be heard he fights with the guitarist for your attention and often times he wins.

The drums do better in the production, while still muddied up you can hear it very clearly. It seems as if every strike on the bass, snare and cymbals can be heard pretty easily, can't say as much for the toms but the whole album seems as drum centric as you can get without cutting everything else out. His favorite thing to do are his blast beats which are used almost relentlessly. He doesn't do much double pedal in preference for more punkish beats but when he does use them they are well executed (Moral Crusade).

Typically these songs would seem completely undeveloped, however in the case that these songs are a political idea wrapped in sound you can hear that these tracks are as well developed as they need to be. True its kind of weak to have a 40 second song, never mind having 20 of them, but this music was made for completely different purposes and ideas then metal or even typical music in general. Each song is merely a piece of a longer idea. My best suggestion would be to listen to the album as a whole, nothing on here besides maybe Scum and Siege of Power would work in a stand alone fashion anyway.

Not For Everyone, But Still a Great Piece - 90%

PersonalDisease, December 1st, 2014

I'm not familiar with this genre and these guys are considered on of the founders of grindcore. I'll admit, at first I thought this album was trash. Poor sound quality, short songs, and quite confusing. It is definitely not for everyone. If you don't like this album now, you most likely won't ever like it. I just happened to have a change of heart.

From an Instrumental standpoint, complexity is not their forte. The riffs are extremely basic. This doesn't necessarily make it bad. They're catchy, but if you're driven away by the insane amount of distortion on the guitars, you most likely won't appreciate them, or the whole album. But, if you can look past the sound quality, you'll most likely enjoy the riffs very much. The drumming is very fast, but off beat for the most part. If you're looking for smooth and rhythmic drumming, you won't like this. Again, this album isn't for everyone. In my opinion, the fast, and almost careless, do what you want feel, is what made me love this album.

Lyrically, this album is focused on politics and they make a convincing argument in where, and why they believe what they believe. These lyrics may bore some people, but interest me considering I have a similar opinion. Their lyrics may be the only thing to keep some positive feedback on the people who hate the instrumentals, but agree with them politically. The vocals on the other hand, are pretty much white noise. Beautiful, heavy, and fast white noise. Don't bother matching the lyrics with the vocals. It simply won't happen.

You have to just accept the fact that this album is basic, fast, heavy, and pretty crazy sounding. This is the epitome of grindcore and a great album to introduce you to the genre. I enjoy the commotion created within the album. Overall, I love it. Even though it's basic, it has a great sound,, it's catchy, and contains lyrical genius. I can't stress enough that it is not for everyone. You've been warned.

Mediocre at best - 2%

Spatupon, March 21st, 2014

This album has already gotten reviewed by "millions" of metal enthusiasts worldwide, but I still feel like I should give my two-cents. Grindcore has always been a hit and miss for me, and although the hype around this album still survives to this very day, more than twenty years after its release, for me, it sounds like total crap.

Granted, the lyrics behind this album possess some real depth, being one of the harshest anti-capitalist critiques in all of music. But does the music possess the same depth, the lyrics so amazingly own? No way. The music is as bland as it can get, it's very simplistic, harsh, and straight to the point. If not provided with some booklet from where to read the lyrics, the feat behind them, becomes insignificant because you can't understand squat, because everything just sounds like a big cluster-fuck, with no real sense of direction.

This album contains the shortest song ever produced, entitled "You suffer" which is basically a one second piece of total crap. I mean, what's the purpose of holding a Guinness world record, when the "song" can't even be enjoyed? If a couple of drum beats, backed by a wall of sound of crappy guitar "melody" can qualify as music, then music's meaning has to be redefined.

Each song on this album is too short to have any real meaning. The listener of this album is surrounded by a huge wall which deprives him from really enjoying the entire album, and make out something of it. A very strange oxymoron if you ask me. The artwork on this one, is very appealing to be completely honest. It perfectly represents the postmodern condition, showing some greedy politicians, above a huge pile of skulls, which symbolize the entire human race. One can really be fooled into expecting some grandeur in this album, if one's opinion is solely based on the artwork.

The copious amount of songs on this album, furthermore enhance its void. Napalm Death's approach towards music can be defined as "quantitative rather than qualitative", sure quantitative does not necessarily mean terrible, but in this case, the bold character that mediocrity possesses is just enormous. The entire musical structure, is quite simplistic, but unfortunately to the inexperienced ear, such void can hide behind a cryptic, complex veil, which is not the case. The number of songs on this album, is definitely one of my main gripes with this album, apart from the number of songs, for it completely destroys any chance the listener has, to enjoy each song individually.

By the end of this album, I was left asking myself the question of why I even bothered giving this album a listen. Probably, it was because of all the hype surrounding this terrible mediocrity. Basically, all I can say is that this album does nothing in conveying some sort of musical experience, although it does send a valuable message to the entire masses out there, to wake up from their dream. The production is passable, or at least, much better than your average grindcore album. I don't really see the reason why this album is considered as a cult in this sub-genre, I guess fortune played an important role.

The Foundation of Extreme Metal - 99%

Grave Ritual, January 21st, 2014

Scum is an enjoyable, groundbreaking, and revolutionary album in the world of extreme metal. One must be familiar with this album in order to fully understand genres such as Grindcore and Death Metal. Along with the fantastic song writing, the primitive, rough, dirty, fast, and absolutely inaccessible sound of Scum is the original blueprint for Grindcore and Death Metal.

Let’s begin with a brief history overview. In the mid 80’s there were a few active movements pertaining to extreme music. Bands such as Slayer and Venom were already taking metal into a fast and ferocious direction. Simultaneously, deeply underground subcultures such as Crust Punk were creating a sound that conveyed a totally raw, dark, filthy, and angry mindset. The point of Amebix and similar bands was to express an utter disgust with mankind as a whole. This is the environment that bands like Napalm Death and Repulsion were brought up in. The scene was like a time bomb ready to explode, and Scum was the explosion.

Scum is a highly original album in regards to the time in which it was released. It contained a new songwriting formula. The riffs are thrashy, but too fast, dark, and mucky to be labeled “Thrash Metal.” The ultra-bass heavy distortion settings along with the distorted bass add to the grossness of these riffs. The vocals are an intense complement to the music. Lee Dorrian’s vocals are just as bass heavy and filthy as the instrumentation. Over the years, Death Metal vocals have been adjusted and refined in sickening ways, but at the time the vocals on this album were the heaviest thing in extreme metal. They provided the groundwork for the evolution of the low and guttural Death Metal vocals that we all know and love. The lyrics on this album are deep, hateful, and rebellious analogies of society and the human race. That being said, they are relatively incomprehensible and are recited as fast as the actual music. This is another technique that has been perfected in later Grind/Death albums. A profoundly significant component of Scum is the drums. Mick Harris is the father of the blast beat. Blast beats have been around since the early 80’s (check out the band Asocial for instance), but this is the album that demonstrated just how fast they can potentially be played. Along with the ultra-fast crusty thrash beats that make room for head banging grooves, the messy drums in each song always lead into a blast beat section that redefines the word “speed.” The songs are so fast that they can’t possibly be any longer than 2 minutes. Scum is where it all started.

Legacy and impact aside, the songs on Scum are actually good. This album consists of two distinctly different halves. The songs on the first half are good metal songs. They are a nice blend of Grindcore, Hardcore Punk, Old School Death Metal, and Sludge. They are all individually catchy, easily moshable, and fun to play on any instrument. Instinct of Survival, for example, is musically and lyrically one of my favorite songs of all time. It is, therefore, understandable why countless numbers of Grindcore and Death Metal bands have covered these songs over the years. The second half of Scum is an entirely different creature. It consists of pure, 100% Grindcore songs. There are no grooves; these songs are all 30 second long collections of blast beats. This is Grindcore in its unadulterated form: absolutely raw filth. The second half of Scum is not as catchy as the first half, but it is still a good listen. Any Grindcore fan should find the songs intriguing.

As evident in the other reviews, Scum is a commonly disliked album. Some people have even gone as far as to label it “the worst album of all time.” I firmly believe that the reason Scum is so hated is because it is too primitive for most people to handle. Think about it. As metal continues to evolve, bands figure out ways to perfect the sound of previous bands. As a result, over the years, the vocals become more distorted, the music becomes heavier and more technical, the subject matter becomes more morbid, etc. Not to mention, as the formula continues to perfect, the overall quality becomes cleaner – yet still dirty sounding – because people now have greater knowledge of how to effectively record such extreme music. Napalm Death, however, did not have a previous band to build off of. The music on Scum was a completely new sound at the time, so of course it does not meet today’s standards. Furthermore, Napalm Death initially came from the Crust Punk scene. Horrible recording quality is a significant component of Crust Punk because it is a fundamental element of DIY ethics. This is partially a reason why Grindcore and Death Metal are, by nature, such inaccessible genres. The fact that actual fans of these genres hate Scum because of its inaccessibility exemplifies how extreme of an album it is.

One who dislikes the second half of Scum probably dislikes Grindcore in general. That’s understandable because Grindcore is not for everyone. Any fan of Death Metal, however, should at least respect the first half of the album. It is an important piece of Extreme Metal history. As I previously stated, one must be familiar with this album in order to fully understand Grindcore and Death Metal. Respect your roots.

I've been Deceived From All the Hype of This Album - 12%

meximetal95, October 27th, 2012

Let me clear something up first. I love Napalm Death so this rant and negative review doesn't reflect hate on the band in general. Quite the opposite really because to me they're one of the best bands I've ever listened to in the grindcore genre along with Carcass.

So why am I hating on this album? Well simply put, this album is so distinct from their later stuff, and I honestly can't stand the overall presentation of this record.

To top things off, the production is terrible and is a mess all around. All I can hear is just pure noise coming from every single member in the band at the time. Random Drum beats, and blast beats that don't even flow through any of the songs not to mention the guitars are distorted as hell that I can't even tell if its the riffs from the guitars, or just a random static fuzzy noise going on. This is hell for me I can't stress that enough and not one of those fun hell rides you get from listening to such an awesome album; no, this is one of those hell rides that just pains your ears to death wondering what the fuck you were listening to in the first place. Not even Carcass's first album sounded like this abomination and it was grindcore with people who managed to have a composition and overall flow. Unlike this one.

The one thing that killed this mainly was the vocals. Oh my god of all the worst vocals I've heard in bands this has got to be the worst. Lee Dorian either was too lazy to practice the vocals prior to the release, or he was just a natural born vocalist that doesn't have the feel or ability to do good behind a damn mic. I get a headache listening to his vocals. I'd rather listen to this whole album without the vocals and hell, I'd rather have Barney do vocals on this album as it would've sounded much better.

I respect the contribution this album has had on the grindcore scene, but this was a listening hell ride experience that I never want go back to as it just a random guys at the time sounding like they recorded this whole mediocre attempt in a garage rather then a studio. There's nothing else that needs to be said about this album as it outweights all the pros. Hell, if there is even any pros for that matter, and the reason this gets 12 is because its Napalm Death, and some credit or score has to be given because this is such an influential album that I'd feel bad giving this a zero.

The Flawed Beginning - 82%

grain_silo, November 29th, 2011

I've heard numerous times that "Scum" is the first pure grindcore album and I almost completely agree. I've also heard that "Scum" is the worst album ever made. I can see the validity in this claim as this album is very repetitive and the production is pretty lousy. Although, the songwriting is solid and for the repetitiveness, isn't all grindcore just a little repetitive?

I'll start with the production. It's not good. The guitars sound like a bad punk sound. They are nothing like Napalm's F.E.T.O. album in terms of amazing production. The drums are the savior of the sound. I really like the drum sound on here: very raw and intense. The bass is heavily distorted and is audible throughout. The vocals are quiet, especially because the drums sound loud. 

The songs are like ultra-fast hardcore punk but with that essence of true grindcore attitude. Kind of like "fuck you music" attitude displayed by a lot of punks and grindcore bands. This is really shown throughout. "Multinational Corporations" is the standard atmospheric intro song. "The Kill" is very short and with a very simple riff and structure manages to leave somewhat of an impression of the grindcore attitude. Short and very aggressive. The title track is like something that could be found on their second album. After the heavy intro to the song that actually has a pretty awesome riff, the blasting begins and the heaviness comes back even better than before. Many songs are very similar to "The Kill", short and blasting through just like awesome grindcore should be. "Success" is definitely the best song on here. The awesome drum beat with the amazing riff really stands out among the rest. 

I'm not really sure how to talk about the line-up because I know nothing of why the line-up is so strange, but both line-ups do a good job on here, yet the side with Lee and Bill are just slightly better, but that is to be expected from Bill. 

The first true grindcore album and it has some pretty significant flaws as with any genre defining album. Don't listen to the people who say this is THE worst album ever. I think that may be a slight exaggeration. Definitely check this out if you love grindcore.

Best tracks - "You Suffer", "Success", "Scum", and "Siege of Power".

This Is What Grindcore's All About! - 97%

EnemyOfTheSun420, December 8th, 2010

Quick, what do you get when you combine British Crust Punk (Doom), American Thrashcore (Siege), and old school American Death Metal (Death), some noise, then throw in a dash of Post-Punk a la Killing Joke? You get classic Grindcore, that's what. And one of the earliest examples of Grind, as well.

Now, this is really a compilation of two EP's, as the two halves were recorded at separate times, even with separate line-ups. This is also evident in the sound of the two halves-the first has more variation in tempo, sounds a bit closer to the Crust Punk scene that spawned it, more cohesive songs as a whole, while the second is more along the lines of pure chaos taking the form of the most extreme punk and metal combining.

Something I love about this (which is true of most Grindcore I listen to) is that its hardcore punk roots are very evident- this has similar riffing and vocal styles to old British Crust Punks, it has the speed and blasting intensity of early American Thrashcore bands- and this also manages to use it's Death metal influence very well, injecting a lot of its atmosphere, while still not letting it overpower the Punk, like many later Grind bands seemed to do.

Of course, historically, this is one of the most important albums in the Grindcore genre, beloved by metalheads and punks allover, as this was one of the earliest real Grindcore albums. Before this, on the metal side, you had Repulsion, and in punk, while you had plenty of precursors to Grind, such as Doom, Electro-Hippies, Siege, and Cryptic Slaughter (though they were metal as well), but Napalm Death really brought it all together-sure, Repulsion had the blasting speed, but they didn't have the Punk attitude and socially aware, political side that Napalm Death brought to the burgeoning genre. This was basically the launching pad for Grindcore, I'd say, and my favorite from Napalm Death.

If for some reason you don't have this yet, buy/download it as soon as possible, but only if you can respect and enjoy extreme punk as well as extreme metal, though frankly, if you can't, you shouldn't be listening to Grindcore anyways, and in my personal opinion there's gotta be something wrong with you haha

A brilliant album that I happen not to like - 75%

Noktorn, September 9th, 2008

I don't like this album very much. I think I'd like it more if most of the albums that came after it weren't exponentially better than this. I realize that 'Scum' is really just a demo with a set of bonus tracks, but it's still sort of overly primitive to me, even as someone who enjoys crust/grind stuff. It seems very unfocused musically compared to even the next album, and while I appreciate its contribution to grindcore as a whole, I can't say I really enjoy listening to it very much.

Side one is substantially better than side two; a lot of people generally agree with that statement. The second half concentrates on noisier bursts of aggression than the first. Side A is much more musical overall with a much greater note from their early hardcore punk days. You could say that side 2 is really where grindcore as we know it begins, albeit in a very chaotic and primordial form. Most of the songs that everyone remembers are on side one, however, including tracks like 'Instinct Of Survival', the title track, and 'Siege Of Power'. There are some really great tracks on this release and it's no wonder that it's as widely lauded as it is, as it is an extremely groundbreaking and crucial release in the scheme of metal as a whole. And yet at the same time I feel no desire to listen to it, really.

I like the tracks on 'Scum' much more on other recordings. The production and playing do a lot to hurt them, honestly. Maybe I'm not a true fan, but I like Napalm Death more when they incorporate at least a little death metal into their sound, and so I prefer tracks from 'Scum' with the tighter instrumentation and more death-oriented vocals that the band later grew into. The production on this record is very weak throughout; it's noisy but the instruments have little punch, particularly because the drums frequently overwhelm the guitars. The playing is not very steady either, with the members of the band often falling in and out of time with each other. It's strange that all these imperfections are something I enjoy in other grindcore bands but find distasteful on this particular record, even when all logic says I should find it MORE acceptable than I ordinarily would.

It's like I can understand that the music itself is of high quality but I can't enjoy it; it's like 'Under The Sign Of Hell' part two. I like the punky/grindy riffs and the dynamic song structures that walk a very tense line between frantic chaos and speedy crust. I enjoy how direct everything is and how a fundamental lack of subtlety is sort of made artistic by the insane brutality of the music on display. The instrumentation is unique and groundbreaking for its time. The overall package is extraordinary and crucial for any serious metal or grind fan to listen to several times if only for historic reasons. But for my personal Napalm Death fix, I'll always go to one of the band's later albums rather than this one. It just lacks the steadiness that I enjoy in the band's later works. If I want straightforward chaotic crust/grind I'll go listen to early Extreme Noise Terror. But for Napalm Death, I like it a bit more grounded.

Obviously this is an entirely mandatory album and I highly recommend you hear it, even if it's not really to my tastes for reasons I don't entirely understand.

History being written over a period of 10 months - 96%

morbert, August 20th, 2008

What we have here are two separate recordingsessions released as a single album. Also the line-up had changed halfway. So no wonder the A and B side sound quite different.

The first half were recordings from august 1986 when Justin Broadrick and Nik Bullen were still in the band. Justin already had a characteristic way of playing guitar, incorporating an industrial touch at times, a lot of feedback and playing punk riffs in a way you’d expect from Celtic Frosts Tom Warrior. Combined with the more hardcore punk attitude of vocalist/bassist Nik Bullen it gave Napalm Death their own specific sound in 1986.

Drummer Mick Harris and Heresy drummer Steve Charlesworth had been competing with eachother live in terms of playing faster than eachother. As a result Napalm Death in 1986 sounded twice as fast as they did during their “Hatred Surge” days when drummer Miles Ratledge was still in the band. This line-up recorded the A-side of the album which included a lot of their older punk songs but placed at a higher pace than before (for instance 'Instinct Of Survival', 'Control' and 'Sacrificed') and some new, shorter and more brutal tunes.

As a result the A-side can be seen as a transitional period between hardcore punk and grindcore as we know it now. Not only are these songs very enjoyable but from an historical point of view rather experimental and groundbreaking. A Napalm Death fan cannot imagine the band with their all time classics ‘Control’, ‘Siege of Power’, the titletrack and of course the shortest ND song ever, ‘You Suffer’ (Guiness Book Of Records: 1,316 seconds)

There are those who dislike the punk attitude of side-A. Are they having difficulties accepting that grindcore emerged largely from the punkscene? The fact that grindore later on got a life of it’s own within the metal scene doesn’t change that. Please go look for the 1984-1985 recordings of the American band Siege and check out old interviews with grindcore bands about their influences. Without punk there wouldn’t have been grindcore nor even thrash metal for that matter! Live with it. And the influence of punk on grindcore can’t be more obvious than on the first half of this record. It was history in the making.

Due to Nik and Justin leaving, the B-side was a result of Mick Harri’s persistence of continuing the band. With Bill Steer, Lee Dorian and Jim Whitley the ‘new’ group focussed on the fastest elements of the earlier recordings and left punk for what it was. One can hear Dorian and Steer still struggling with getting into this new style and they don’t sound convincing all the time yet (something which became more obvious when the From Enslavement LP was released on which they sounded briliant!). Still the B-side had a lot to offer. It was more consistent than before, faster and some instant classics like ‘Conservative Shithead’, ‘Life?’, ‘Moral Crusade’ and ‘Deceiver’.

For some a lot of songs on this album have too much punk in them. Other find Side-B too montome compared to the variation in styles and pace on the A-side. In the end it’s an album that in itself shows the remarkable evolution of a young band and incidentally influencing metal headsa dn punks all over the world.

To people who grew up with polished (modern) grindcore and find this album not to be brutal enough or too sloppy I can only say: these were a bunch of youngsters, without cash, experimenting and having fun. Don’t expect a 21st century sound nor triggered super tight drums from a 1987 (underground) release. And heavy guitars do not automatically make something ‘brutal’. They just make it… heavy….

Napalm Death weren’t heavy, they were musically structured noise with a message. A buch of youngsters who used to play punk but under the influence of Genocide (Repulsion) and Siege got a whole lot of new ideas about extreme music…

How did these guys get a label? - 5%

brutalbassist, December 11th, 2007

This CD is flat out horrible. I hate every single little aspect about it, the only thing I find semi-tolerable is the drumming. I picked this up at a local store for 20$ and I wish I would have bought something else. It is a complete waste of money. And I wouldn't even download it off LimeWire, because it's not worth the time. Besides that I always buy albums anyway (musicians with talent gotta make money somehow, right?)

Let's start off with the vocals. Monotonous, annoying, talent less, incomprehensible shouting. In the 20th Anniversary Edition of this disk (the one I own) there is a bonus DVD with "The Scum Story". On that DVD, it reveals the vocalist had to be cued in on every single song. How pathetic is that?

The guitars have heavy, yet catchy riffs, I will say that much. However, there is no talent in them at all! This is metal people! It HAS to be to get on the Archives! Metal has talent. Napalm Death does not. That's the simplest way to put it. These riffs are only power chords, that’s it. There is no variation. Now, most of my favorite bands only use power chords for riffs, but they have solos. That’s another thing I can't stand about this release. There are very, very few solos. Of the few that are there, I don't think a single one of them is over 5 seconds in length, and they are very basic.

The bass is completely inaudible, except in tracks like "Scum" which if I remember correctly, has a bass intro. Then the bassist uses very terrible distortion, completely killing the tone. He also uses a pick, destroying the sound even more. What was this guy thinking? The only way distortion sounds good on a bass is if Cliff Burton played it that way.

The drums are probably the best part of this release. Very fast and brutal, nice. This drummer is insane, but not the best I've heard. In the bonus DVD, they show him demonstrating a blast beat. He no longer even owns a kit and had not played for years, and somehow, this guy surpassed what most modern day drummers could do. This is the best part of the album along with the lyrics.

The lyrics are very political and convincing, they get their point across. I just wish I could understand them while the vocalist “sings” them. I have no problem understanding Chris Barnes or George Fisher.

What was this band thinking? Were they trying to make this album as short and terrible as they could? They have one track over three minutes. One of twenty-eight tracks is over three minutes in length! They have a song that one second long and then four seconds of silence. That's ridiculous. I hated this CD and I would never recommend this to anyone. Not even my worst enemy deserves that kind of torture. Whatever you do, do NOT buy this release.

Album of strong anarchic punk-influenced metal - 70%

NausikaDalazBlindaz, November 18th, 2007

This album is famous for a number of reasons some of which don't actually relate to the music itself. Certainly "Scum" was a forerunner of the grindcore scene and for a time drew public attention to a new generation of underground metal bands in the UK (and it helped that the late UK radio host John Peel was a fan of Napalm Death for a while). The album is also unusual in that two different band line-ups, each featuring people who became famous in other bands after leaving ND, play on the album: Side 1 features a line-up with a future member of Godflesh and Jesu (Justin Broadrick) and the musicians on Side 2 include future members of Carcass (Bill Steer) and Cathedral (Lee Dorrian), plus the only musician to feature on both sides, Mick Harris (or MJ Harris as he prefers to style himself these days) has since made a name for himself in experimental / dub / ambient music. The album cover which depicts reptilian corporate CEOs presiding over social, economic and physical destruction of human beings and the Earth was designed by Bill Steer's Carcass comrade Jeff Walker and the album itself addresses the theme of global domination by octopus-like corporations and the methods they and their friends in government and the commercial media use to keep people down, a theme that perhaps is more relevant to us now than it was 20 years ago when "Scum" was recorded.

Aside from all this interesting background info, what actually emerges in the way of music from "Scum" is a parade of strongly anarchic punk-influenced metal songs most of which are no longer than a minute or two and are hardly more than blasts of guitar anger and guttural roar. Other songs have basic riffs and melodies with maybe slightly more comprehensible lyrics and a rare guitar solo. On Side 1, the early songs go so fast and the singing can be such a blurry mess on most tracks that it's easy to get lost. Drumming consists of Harris mustering as much energy he can at once to bash the skins and foot pedals. Occasionally there'll be a diarrhoea guitar solo. The few recognisable songs include "Multinational Corporations" and everything from and including "Siege of Power" to the end: the singing becomes a lot clearer and the last 5 tracks on Side 1 have stronger and more regular riffs and melodies, though they can still collapse into fits of blast beat chaos. At the very end is the famous one-second wonder "You Suffer" in which everything that has gone before, lyrically speaking, gets pancaked into the short rhetorical question that is spat out in a roar.

The Side 2 songs are just as fast but are slightly different in that they sometimes have a dual vocal approach (Dorrian singing the lyrics and Harris helping out on garbled background vocals and screaming) and the standard of musicianship is a bit better with some songs actually having changes in rhythm and pace and Bll Steer managing to get in a frenzied fat-sounding lead guitar solo suggestive of burgeoning bacteria on "Parasites". Songs like "Success?", "Stigmatized" and "M.A.D." have bouncy, almost danceable rhythms and it's clear from the energy on these tracks that the musicians enjoy each other's company.

Musically the album is short on technical finesse and you could argue that if all the songs had been better written and had some real structure in the way of definite riffs and melodies, then the guys would have something to channel their energy and righteous anger with the result that their message would be more effective and hard-hitting and listeners would feel the anger and aggression coming out of the music. As it is, the emotion seems blocked and all over the place and unfocussed. With the songs being so short, there is not much scope for a guitarist with some talent like Bill Steer to prove his chops. But possibly the idea behind "Scum" was to create something that was anti-capitalistic and anarcho-punk in spirit and that might have meant doing away with "capitalist" music concepts such as melody and pacing and all the other things that make music amenable to listeners' preferences (which sometimes can be pretty narrow), therefore we have "anti-music" as well as "anti-capitalist" music.

Overall the lyrics are more important than the actual music itself and I think this is very much in sync with Napalm Death having been more of an outlet for expressing a particular point of view and ideology about what music should be about, and changing people's perceptions of music composition.

This is obviously one of those recordings where the legend surrounding it is greater than the actual object that spawned it deserves but that's often the way with famous albums. I could take an example of a legendary album like Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" which is hugely famous and which a lot of people regard in awe: I find that a lot of the music on that record is really very ordinary, indulgent and forgettable, and the hoopla that's surrounded the album since its 1973 release just seems to get bigger and more out of control.

A good introduction to grindcore - 70%

OutOfQuestion, June 30th, 2007

A lot of things have been said about "Scum" by Napalm Death. Some more true than others, but as it stands, this is a very fine grindcore album, though not deserving of most of the credit or praise it gets.

The music defines the early Earache sound. Exceptionally metallic grindcore (at the time) that has been copied to death, from Japan to the USA. What made the album so revolutionary and different than other music at the time wasn't the fact that it was grindcore (which was played before by punk legends like Lärm, Cyanamid and Fear Of God), but its mysterious metal crossover appeal.

The production was crap, the vocals were shouted and shrieked and the guitars sound like a muddy mess, with the most of the guitarplaying in mid-speed over the frenzied and well-executed blastbeats. The only break from the insanity are the occasional thrash metal riffs and the slow sludge of the title track's intro.

When it comes down to it, it's a very good record and definitely recommended if you want to widen your horizons in extreme music, but the formula has been done better before and after, even by blatant copy cats such as Insect Warfare or Unholy Grave. However, if this isn't what you're looking for, don't hesitate to look for other grindcore records, the genre has much more and better things to offer than this.

Perfect grindcore - 100%

minorthreat665, January 23rd, 2007

Most everything has already been said, but some of this bears repeating: Scum, albeit incredibly raw, epitomizes everything good about grindcore. This entire album is a work of incredibly fast and aggressive sonic mayhem. The speed and intensity of Napalm Death on this recording (which is actually two separate sessions, one in late '86 and one in early '87) still is rarely matched today by most bands; it puts all of their speedy hardcore punk and thrash contemporaries of the mid-eighties to shame.

Simply playing fast, of course, is not what is amazing about this album; any artist with enough practice can play at fast tempos. The amazing thing is how they manage to weave the speed with their incredibly raw production and instrumental sound (which in my opinion is when grindcore sounds best). The album is not polished, but still very audible, even to picky listeners. The actual instrumental sound is very raw, adding further to the intensity of the music.

Blastbeating drums thud throughout the entire album, which unfortunately sometimes drown out the guitars. Despite this, the heavy insane drumming makes the perfect grindcore atmosphere, complete with frantic riffs and the occasional slowed down parts, such as before the verses in "Scum," or in "Siege of Power."

Overall, this album is a completely amazing work of raw, lightning fast, wild grindcore that has to be listened to to be believed. Amazing, amazing album, 100%.

This scum was born prematurely and malnourished... - 26%

Funeral_Shadow, June 7th, 2006

Okay okay okay! So it's already obvious that Napalm Death's "Scum" is hailed as the first true grindcore release ever... but does that make it so "Godly?"

It seems like many people praise this album as the best grindcore release only because it was the first known grindcore release. I must say that this isn't the best grindcore around; although for it's time, this was extreme but even back then, if I was to hear this album as a raging angst teen in the mid-80's, I'm sure I still would've been kind of turned off to the album. A lot of it has to do with the bands attempt at trying to be the most brutal band of the time and the musicianship.

I do like Napalm Death, but I honestly don't like this CD. It's not really catchy, not so memorable, not spectacular; wait, I take that back; it's spectacular in the sense of actually hearing one of the first attempts at making "schizo" music. Other than that, the production on the first half of the CD reeks of shit (the first half is actually the demo I know but it could've been mastered better) while the other half of the CD has much more decent production but still not the best song writing.

That's the weird about this release, it has two distinct sides. The first half of it is the demo part that Napalm Death recorded and released independently featuring Justin K. Broadrick and Nik Bullen on strings. Justin I know never was a fan of being apart of the "grindcore" movement and despised the word. With this in mind, I must also add that he wasn't the best guitarist for fast paced music; Godflesh is his homecoming because his attempt at playing stellar hardcore punk riffs never worked out. For the most part then, Justin wrote the music with Mick Harris (drums) on the first half of the CD and did I mention how much of a maniac Mick is on drums? For something in the 80's, this was fucking extreme because of his unique drumming style (at the time of course.)

Some songs which could've been good but failed because of musicianship are songs like "Instinct of Survival" because the drumming and attempt at playing fast guitar altogether just didn't seem to work out and Lee Dorian (vocals) sounds more like he's barking with a sore throat rather than barking with a growl sound. Throughout the first half, Lee sounds like this and it's not the best vocal performance either. I like it better when he sounds like he's actually growling rather than half assed sore throat rasps. On the other hand, some standout songs are the immediate showstoppers "The Kill" for it's intensity and sting after it's done within 23 seconds, and also the classic "You Suffer", which has to be one of the most innovative songs played and why you ask? Well, it's no more than 3 seconds long and that should seem retarded to many of you, but think about it: a song that is 3 seconds long? Who would have ever thought? It's definitely not a sing-a-long song (try screaming "You suffer... but why?" fast!) but it's just one of those "wow, what the hell" songs. "Siege of Power" is a song on the album which comes close to being the thrashiest track here as well as probably the longest, spanning over 3 minutes and actually having a chorus line as opposed to every other "blast" of a track and oh yeah, there's no blast beats on this track either. It's not the best song here but it's worth mentioning that it's different from the rest of the whole album.

The other half of this release features Bill Steer (guitar) of the soon to be Carcass fame as well as Jim Whitely (bass) of Ripcord fame. Even though the production is far better on this side of the album, it still isn't so memorable of a listen. Bill was born to play music this fast as opposed to Justin because his riffs are top notch and can play in temp with the blast beats... Justin couldn't really do that so well as I mentioned. The blast beats and guitar playing working hand in hand with one another. Still, the music on this half seems kind of "empty" or it's missing something… it's missing energy! As opposed to the other half of this CD, this side doesn't have such great and raw energy. It sounds very monotonous and bland... but at least the music work is tighter as I mentioned.

Such memorable songs here are "Deceiver", which the opening riff kind of grabs you and leaves you in blast beat oblivion and Lee's (better) vocal performance with his growling. It's a riff playing over and over to a blast beat with Lee's voice echoed through the song like he was some ghost in the studio. I can't think of any other song really worth mentioning from this side because nothing else seems to stand out like "Deceiver" does.

While this may be the first grindcore release ever, it isn't the greatest. Things that begin usually start very rusty and progressively get better. As with most things that start, grindcore as well as Napalm Death would sound and get better and, as with any art, you have to learn to perfect what you're doing. Hence I'm not trying to negatively degrade this album at all but I am pointing out that Napalm Death will get better and this "grindcore" music will become more interesting than the music here. I'm merely saying in short that this is legendary and very novelty to listen to, but it's not recommended for a intro to grindcore music or what Napalm Death sound like.

"Scum" just presents a movement of a new kind within the extreme music world... and its birth date was on this very album... it's just came out prematurely let’s say.


Ear Candy: You Suffer, The Kill, Siege of Power, Deceiver...

A piece of history! - 100%

grindorr, October 25th, 2004

"Scum",the first ever grindcore album, is a must have for any fan of grindcore,death metal, hardcore or even punk.
The line up is really archaic, one of the early line ups,(yes there were other members before the band recorded "scum"!)
The production is raw, giving the cd a gritty feel. Elements of punk and hardcore clubbed together to create a sound so raw and brutal, it could change the way you look at the world around you.
The songs mainly deal with socio-political issues such as governments,multi-national corporations, 3rd world nations etc. The album got napalm death noticed because of its ferocious anti-commercial stance. Each song is a furious minute long burst of agonizing guitars and vocals coupled with blast beats and fast punk style drumming.Songs on this cd may come across as short detonations of noise to the untrained ear.

The guitars on the first 13 tracks sounds more punkish. The guitar on the songs after track 13 are more buzzsaw like and "grindcore" sounding, this kind of tuning is what you may hear on most other grindcore bands.

Vocals range anywhere from gruffy shouts to savage screams ("whirlwind screams" as the cd inlay describes it).


Some of the songs are very mosh-able but most are just furious explosions of sonic violence making it very different from later napalm death albums where songs would be around 4 minutes in length and sound more refined and polished.
Its really hard to keep track of the songs without looking at the display on your cd player.Most may not even differentiate between the tracks which all are the same blasts of noise only varying in terms of riffs and drum paterns.
I guess that makes listening to it better. You have to play the entire album from start to finish and just sit back and take the pounding and enjoy all 26 tracks as one unit all together.

Scum would sound very harsh on your ears and devastate your idea of extreme music if your listening to it for the first time but then again, this is how napalm death stormed through the metal world, crushing death metal and thrash metal bands alike.

4 songs youll have to pay attention to are:
Multinational corporations : Composed of guitar noise, with cymbals crashing faintly and a pissed off voice going "multinational corporations, genocide of the starving nations". This is the greatest opening track on any cd.

Instinct of surival : A bizarre mutation of punk metal, has a great vocal pattern. And great opening riff.

Moral crusade : This is on the "second" half of the cd. Boils with angry screams and growls and insane guitarwork.
The most extreme outburst of guitars, drums and vocals ever recorded.

You suffer : Ok, this isnt exactly a song, but just a songlet less than 1 second!!! This holds the world record for shortest song ever released. Probably inspired the trend of releasing really short songs among other grindcore songs.

On an ending note, it should be observed that no ther band -save for Black Sabbath,has achieved what Napalm death have - Inspire a whole new genre of music with just their debut called Grindcore. (which would later spawn several subgenres - noise, crust, goregrind, porngrind, shitcore etc that would eventually flood the category)

Napalm death rises tall above all the bullshit . They are LIVING LEGENDS, probably the last worthy survivor in this genre. The fact that they exist to this day without leaving behind any of the brutality is a standing testament to this fact.Little wonder the name "napalm death" is synonymous with the term "grindcore".
Another interesting point is that two other big bands branched out of the line up on this album: Bill steer(bass) would quit to form carcass, and Lee dorian (vocals) would start cathedral. Both bands gained their own brand of popularity in the metal underground.
A sacred relic to every grindcore fan and a powerhouse of socio-political expression, "scum' is a must buy for any fan of extreme music. Truly, this album is a piece of modern music history.

suffer - 99%

Apophis, April 12th, 2004

Well what do we have here?

Only probably THE singlehandedly most extreme reknowned and pioneering albums of the eighties which has influenced countless extreme bands since... all with a debut album.

'Scum' is effectively comprised of two demos which got the band signed with the two different lineup each forming one half of the album. The first, and superior, half contains both the blistering title track that is still a death classic even now, as well as the infamous two-second hyperblast (one of many) that is 'You Suffer'; the latter half with the more familar Embury, Dorrian, Harris lineup.

This music is raw (yet not underproduced to detriment), incendiary, brutal... practically sheer aural carnage. Music to destroy things to. Or more to the point, music to bring down governments /multi-nationals with.

Scum practically invented what would later be termed 'grindcore' even though the band would later evolve into more of a death-grind hybrid with hardcore & punk influences (ie the Dead Kennedy's cover 'Nazi Punks Fuck Off' of later years).

Quite simply if you hate pop-rock and their coiffured MTV-kin, or just want to make your ears bleed, listen to the album that gave heavy metal a shotgut at the base of the neck and cold shiver down the spine.

This is where it all started... - 93%

MagmarBlue, September 4th, 2003

Grindcore...the very creation of Napalm Death, 'Scum' ended the race for fastest and heaviest in the music world. The original line-ups (yes I said line-ups, because there are essentially two different bands on this album, one per side) combined metal, hardcore, and punk with their own sick, demented, twisted creativity and points of view which evolved into the most brutal music ever made. Mick Harris's technique called the "blast beat", forever changed the genre of death metal. Virtually every death metal band to start after 'Scum' made use of the blast beat. The music on 'Scum' is brutal, fast, and speaks of human nature, and political unrest and world issues. The songs are short, which is why there are 28 tracks crammed on, which equal less than 30 minutes worth of listening. The vocals are all but impossible to decipher, which also had an influence on death metal. The guitars are grinding and pound brutality into your skull like a jackhammer. 'Scum' may have been the album that started grindcore, but the influence that it had on death metal is undeniable. To fully get what the music on 'Scum' is all about I advise that you check it out...NOW! Be open minded, as 'Scum' takes several listens to fully absorb.

Awesome fucking Grind!!! - 90%

Soulreaper_SOLB, March 30th, 2003

Its been a long time since an album literally grabbed me by by neck and pounded the flying shit out of me, but all has changed since i bought this album. On the first spin i was all over the fucking place!!! The album just picked me up and slammed me against the wall.... how can you not get floored? this album is 28 tracks (well 27.... 'Multinational Corporations' is an intro with no real substance, but still good for what it is) of pounding brutality... harsh Vocals, pounding fast as fuck Drums, a peculiar but awesome as hell Muddy Bass Sound, some great Guitar work..., good riffs, wherever there was a solo it was a good one, especially the one contained within 'Siege of Power'.... most songs ran under :50, but thats the unique beauty of Grindcore...

Many would consider this an infuential album, and so do i... this was one of the very first albums to get the Grind movement.. well, moving! And you can't forget the odd story behind this album... as the other reviewer stated, the line up changes on Side A and B and how there are no original members of Napalm Death to this day. A lot of people have had problems with production, i'm one of those people who can listen to something with horrible production and care the slightest bit (like Cracass 'Reek of Putrefaction', production is irrelevant..) But i personally think the production is good!

Overall, if you're a fan of Napalm Death (unless you're into newer ND) or just a fan of Grindcore in general.... listen to it at its best, pick up Napalm Death's 'Scum'.. you won't be disappointed!

Welcome to the most brutal Grindcore festival!!!!! - 89%

skolnick, February 7th, 2003

Well...this has so many fuckin great speeded up songs that I think I’ll just generalize it... Napalm Death's first record "Scum" is a landmark in grindcore. Probably one of the founding albums of the impressive extreme sound that had as the other godfathers of it, the fantastic...well you know them...Carcass. This one is a festival of average 40 seconds, totally fast, ripping apart and annihilating grind authentic beasts. It terms of comparison, it doesn't have the brutality of "Reek of Putrefaction" from Carcass but it is sure good enough to put your neighbour at your door with a rifle next to your head telling you to shut the fuck up...

This album has a lot of peculiarities inherent to it. The first one is the fact that none of the Napalm Death members that recorded this one is on the actual line up, so, you can call those five guys everything today but not Napalm Death, that's the way it goes...The other interesting peculiarity is the fact the original release had two sides, side A and side B that were played by two completely different line-ups. Probably the first time this ever happened in a metal record (or in any other record!!!). The first line up is the closest to the original Napalm Death that went from punk to an aggressive grindcore and was formed by: Nick Bullen - Bass/Vocals, Justin Broadrick - Guitars and Mick Harris - Drums. These guys recorded the first side of "Scum" that went from "Multinational Corporations" to "You Suffer”. ATTENTION, these guys are not credited on the original release but they actually played that bulk of songs...
The side B of "Scum" was recorded by: Lee Dorrian - Vocals, Bill (yeah, the guy from Carcass) Steer - Guitars, Jim - Bass and Mick Harris - Drums. There's a little difference of sound from one line up to another but the psychological slaughter is practically the same in the two of them, and it goes from "Life" to "Dragnet"

The production is not so good and it could have been a little better if the producer had made them sound more then a garage band recording that was about to record their latest demo.

About the guys, Nick Bullen and Lee Dorrian really throw it out completely in some really brutal kind of singing...no sorry, screaming, Bill Steer's guitar sound could be a little bit better than Justin' sound but it's not bad after all. The bass has practically the same sound for the two guys, a really distorted and grinding low tone that fits like hell on those little demonstrations of pure killing and the drumming by the survivor member Mick Harris is just fucking hyperactive...that guy must have sipped some pretty decent gallons of fuel to play like that...it's so fast that he probably got his arms on fire in the middle of recording...

Shane Embury, the current bassist is now the closest member to be an original one, as he entered Napalm Death after the recording of the B side to join them on tour. Bill Steer recorded this one and the next album with Napalm Death after Carcass were put on hold because of drummer Ken Owen studies. He then left to record permanently with Carcass. The cover art for this album was made by Jeff Walker, the bassist/vocalist from Carcass.

All of the songs, although being very similar, never are enough to get you bored with that brutality and speed. The really remarkable song on this record is the Guinness record for the fastest song ever (something that even S.O.D weren't capable of doing...). "You Suffer" is the fastest and brutal, but really brutal song ever recorded in metal. This one goes in time like this: 00:00:00.10. Well, if you don't believe it, you have to get "Scum" to verify it...

Absolute Grindcore classic...an absolute must have for these three reasons:

1 - Two different line ups
2 - Bill Steer (Carcass) on Guitars, Lee Dorrian (Cathedral) on Vocals and original drummer Mick Harris
3 - 28 Devastating, brutal, vomiting horror classics

Get it...NOW!!!!!!!!