Review Summary: Released in 1987 under the ruling of Margaret Thatcher's conservative Britain, Scum redefined heavy music with its ferocious speed and strong political content. Quite literally, listening to the album feels like you've had a hydrogen bomb explode inside y
''Art reflects life. Extreme times demand extreme responses. Silence sucks. Noise is always the answer''.
If there is a sentence that best describes Napalm Death's career, then this is it. Ever since their legendary debut entitled Scum, Napalm Death have pushed the boundaries of heavy music with a consistent onslaught of noise and experimentation.
Listening to Scum feels like you've had a hydrogen bomb explode inside your head. It's a monumental experience, and this year marks the 30th anniversary since the original release of the album.
It's time to pay tribute to one of the most influential records in the history of heavy music.
Released in 1987 under the ruling of Margaret Thatcher's conservative Britain, Scum redefined heavy music with its ferocious speed and strong political content. The album's lyrical themes were grounded in real-life issues as opposed to Satanism and dungeons and dragons. Napalm Death were pissed off, and unlike a lot of their peers, they actually had something to say.
The band spent almost a year trying to record their debut. As a result, the disc consists of two sides, and they sound very different from each other. Ultimately, you end up having two albums here. Side one covers the first 12 tracks while side two comprises the remaining 16 songs.
The first side was recorded by Nic Bullen (vocals/bass), Justin Broadrick (guitar) and Mick Harris (drums) in 1986. After the recording sessions, however, Justin Broadrick and Nic Bullen left the band. As the only remaining member in the band, Mick Harris decided to recruit a new line-up to finish the recording of the album.
This is a very important moment because if it wasn't for Mick Harris, one could say that there probably wouldn't have been Napalm Death anymore, let alone Scum.
But Mick Harris was a drummer with a vision. In 1987, he recruited Lee Dorian on vocals, Bill Steer on guitar, and James Whitley on bass. This was the line-up that recorded the second side of Scum.
If I'm completely honest with you, I've mostly listened to the two sides separately because (to me) they've always felt and sounded different. The first side feels more punk-driven while the second one has a more metallic edge to it. I like both of them.
However, recently, I find myself listening to side one more often than side two. Then again, I've been into Amebix, Discharge and Cro-Mags a lot lately which might explain why I relate to the first side more. That being said, I am not saying that there is a ''better'' side here. The truth is that both of them are equally important - musically and historically - and each side has a very distinct sound.
They say that the first 20 minutes of a film are critical as to whether the audience will like it or not. In the case of Scum, you need about two minutes to know that this *** is good.
''Multinational Corporations'' opens the album, and Nic Bullen sounds like he's trying to sing the lyrics while drowning in a bathtub. Much like Birmingham in the late 80's, the intro is cold and bleak; it creates a dark and hopeless atmosphere that sets the mood for the entire album.
On the first side you have classic sledgehammers such as 'Instinct of Survival', 'Polluted Minds', the groovy 'Scum', and then you have 'Siege of Power'. That one is a ***ing classic!
It's a fairly complex song (compared to the other tracks on the album) because it contains multiple riffs and tempo changes. However, the real treat comes at the end with a very – for lack of a better word – slippery guitar solo from Broadrick which sounds like something that could have been on Metallica's Kill 'Em All.
Twenty minutes in and you're done with the first 12 songs. You have to remember that Scum is not a very long album. It clocks at about 33 minutes. Nowadays, this has become quite normal (especially for a grindcore record), but back in 1987 there weren't many albums with such a short length. One of the more popular examples from around the same time would be Slayer's Reign in Blood (1986) which is about 28 minutes long.
Having said that, Scum proved to be heavily influential for a couple of reasons. The first one is the blast beats, popularized by Mick Harris. The other – microsongs. Microsongs are extremely short songs that last just a few seconds. In that respect, Scum is genesis.
Essentially, what you get is 28 tracks in roughly 30 minutes. This gives you, on average, 1.17 minutes per song. The album famously has the shortest song in the world – 'You Suffer (But Why?)' which is 1.316 seconds long. Other microsongs on the record include 'The Kill', 'Common Enemy' and the weird 'Deceiver'.
With songs like this Napalm Death created the formula of how a grindcore album should be structured. This has been replicated by thousands of bands over the years, most notably: Rotten Sound and Agoraphobic Nosebleed. The latter took that formula to the extreme with their third release Altered States of America.
Anyways, back to side two.
The second side sounds more metallic than the first one. Every instrument is on steroids here, and the production sounds beefier. This creates a very claustrophobic atmosphere because there is almost no ambience on that side. It feels like as if they recorded it in a hermetically sealed studio. Also, the vocals of Lee Dorian are a feast for your hearing pleasure. On one hand, you have the primitive grindcore growl and, on the other, you get high-pitched screams that sound like a barking dog with broken glass in its throat.
There are some great songs on the second side. 'Life?' feels like a punch in the face; 'Success' has a very catchy middle section; short outbursts of schizophrenia ('Paradise') – you have them too.
As a whole, the album sounds homogeneous because the songs blend seamlessly with each other. They are arranged very well. And even though the disc consists of two sides (which were, essentially, recorded by two different bands), there is a natural evolution between them.
As you listen through the songs, Scum paints pictures of industrial landscapes of desolation, coal fumes and furnaces; of corporate greed, minimum-wage labour, and the endless sound of factories that never sleep. Of modern day slaves, chained in front of the television set, as they get brainwashed by multi-million corporate propaganda. Conceptually, Scum is as complete as an album can get. There is social critique in it, there is political attack and corporate disgust, and the music reflects that in a perfect way.
I was listening to the album again the other day and it was entertaining as hell. Even though I've listened to it countless times over the years (I first heard it nine years ago), I keep discovering new sounds and motives which I haven't heard before.
In my opinion, this is a sign of a great music album - when you listen to it over and over again while the music constantly reinvents itself by uncovering new details. That, to me, makes the music exciting regardless of what genre it is.
Personal notes aside, Scum is not only important for establishing the trademark sound (and song structure) of grindcore but it's also responsible for helping develop other genres of heavy music. After all, the album was the starting point for the music careers of Mick Harris, Lee Dorrian, Nic Bullen, and Justin Broadrick.
A couple of years later, Lee Dorrian would start his own band - doom metal legends Cathedral - while Mick Harris and Nic Bullen would create the anomaly that is Scorn. Most notably, however, after leaving Napalm Death, Justin Broadrick went on to create the mighty Godflesh.
One could say that what Napalm Death did to grindcore, Godflesh did to industrial metal, and the rest – as they say – is history.
Happy birthday, Scum!!
