Napalm Death - Scum - Review

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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

EnemyOfTheSun420
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