Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Napalm Death - Scum (1987)



(originally posted on Facebook)

The question I always have for death metal fans is this: Is it supposed to be ridiculous? Am I supposed to be laughing at how absurd the whole things is? If I am supposed to be taking this seriously, then I just don't understand. Does every death metal vocalist do that voice as some kind of tribute to the victims of throat cancer?

I like how every song on this album contains the "explicit" label when I can't even tell if the singer is speaking English. Or even speaking at all. There is one thing that happens in almost every death metal song where the guitarist is hitting an insane string of 16th notes and the drummer tries to keep up by smashing his kit as fast as he can. The result is typically messy, because keeping time doesn't seem to matter as much playing really fast. Anyway, if you want to know what Scum is all about listen to any random 2-minute chunk. The rest of the album is that chunk repeated 16 times. It didn't make me angry, mostly because I was entertained by how stupid it was. 2 stars.

BTW - I know Napalm Death is classified as "grindcore" and not "death metal", but nobody who isn't a fan of grindcore would know what the fuck that is. Death metal is a pretty generic term that most people will recognize and associate with the really loud, dark, fast, grunting style employed by Napalm Death, so that's what I used. Aside from that, the word "death" is in the name of the band. I feel justified in my decision.

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