Scum

On some level, I had a feeling the metal representation in the 1001 Albums books would largely be token records of a few of the many subgenres that are out there. Thus far on my journey, I've seen examples of traditional heavy metal, New Wave of British Heavy Metal, glam metal, thrash metal, industrial metal, alternative metal, and nu metal. While today is no exception to being a token nod to its subgenre, the subgenre itself is something the casual person wouldn't even come across compared to those I've listed. For today, we get to shine a light on grindcore, a fusion of extreme metal and hardcore punk characterized by distorted, down-tuned guitars, high-speed tempo, blast beats, very harsh vocals, and abbreviated song lengths. One of the big names credited with laying the groundwork for grindcore is England's own Napalm Death, with their influential debut album, Scum.

Let me state this right now - this genre is very difficult to approach for the average person. I am not looking to gatekeep here, but I do want to be upfront that this album, and grindcore in general, is a very abrasive type of music. Nicholas Bullen and Lee Dorian's vocals are very hard to decipher through all their growling and shouting. The riffs from Justin Broadrick and Bill Steer go by super-fast, while Mick Harris' drumming is frantic and relentless. I personally became accustomed to this music after familiarizing myself with the genre's stylistic origins, such as hardcore punk and death metal. I can't imagine this would be an easy listen for someone who has never listened to metal before, or whose only familiarity with metal music is whatever got played on FM radio. If this style of music is not for you, I understand. As someone familiar with this style of music, I had a good time with this record. The riffs I can pick out from Justin and Bill are very gnarly alongside Jim Whitely's distorted bass, Mick's blast beats hit hard in a manner that I couldn't help but feel elated by, and I dug the band's penchant for extremely anti-capitalist, pro-environmental sentiment in their lyrics.

Really, my only issues with this album are, oddly enough, characteristics of grindcore as a whole. First, as I mentioned, the song lengths are largely abbreviated. While there are a few tracks that do take a few minutes to build that sinister mood, such as "Instinct of Survival", the title track, and "Siege of Power", most of the songs tend to last no more than a minute and don't allow enough time to sink in and latch onto any particular motifs. Hell, one of the most noteworthy songs on the record, "You Suffer", is only one second long, which is hilarious but also lends itself to being a bit of a novelty.

The other problem with this album that's also indicative of grindcore is the production. Yeah, it's pretty rough, and while I'm certain it is intentional, it is nevertheless a hurdle. I will say that grindcore is better appreciated in a live setting, where the impact is immediate and intense.

At the end of the day, I still consider Scum to be a great record, fundamental in the pantheon of extreme music. Napalm Death is still active after several lineup changes, with none of the people from the two lineups on this album around. In fact, some of the ex-members went on to form other notable extreme metal bands like Godflesh and Carcass, which is cool to see.

1
I once listened to Drakes 'certified lover boy' just after it had come out in an attempt to understand what all the fuss was about with him. Because of that punishing mistake this was only the second worst album I've ever heard - at least napalm death kept it under 30 minutes.

There were points in this where for 15 seconds or so I'd think, this isn't so bad - a nice guitar riff maybe. And then the singer would start scream/growl/choking out something completely illegible, or the drummer would decide to see how fast, hard and tunelessly he could smash up his drums and it was back to being awful. The fact that the second half was by an almost entirely different group of musicians was the most impressive bit, because they'd somehow managed to find people worse than the first lot.

I've tried to see the positives in the albums I haven't enjoyed so much, and almost all of the time I can get why other people would. But it's genuinely incomprehensible to me why anyone would actually chose to listen to something like this. Sorry to those who do :(

Might be the funniest thing I've listened to so far. It's getting a 3 for that and because this is what I was expecting RATM to sound like. Those guys weren't nearly as pissed off as these jolly fellows.

I don't like this album but not because of the reasons the wusses in the reviews have. I just thought it was boring.

Ugggghhh when you can read the lyrics, you find that they are actually interesting. But they are impossible to understand when they are being growled at you! My least favorite vocal style. What a waste of good content.
I will give credit to the instrumentalists, because when I manage to block out the vocals I hear some pretty good stuff going on back there.

It’s going to go into the two star category of: I understand the value of this, I just get no pleasure from listening to it.

Back when i was a bartender in Dresden, my friend had told me about napalm death and i decided that i would play scum for all of my customers. While that was going on i saw two drunk young men walk into the accessible bathroom with a fully tattooed goth whore and they started to have a spitbogging contest inside while a guy in a wheelchair was patiently waiting to use the toilet. I felt bad for the guy.

I like weird stuff, but this is too angry and heavy for me. Ha at that 5 second song though.

28 canciones en 33 minutos. Infumable. Ni siendo más o menos fan del heavy y el rock duro me ha interesado lo más mínimo. Hasta siendo tan corto se hace largo. Supongo que tiene que estar aquí por ser el album pionero del grindcore.

There's something to be said about thrashing dozens of minute and an half or less songs into existence. Fucking metal as fuck. Noise and confusion.

2.6

Honestly, this just sounds silly. I kept picturing Animal from The Muppets while listening.

It's not actually all that bad, it's just waaaaaay over the top. I'll keep this album in mind the next time I need to make myself laugh.

edit 10/28/25: it's grown on me, it really has. I've added Scum to my library and bumped up my star rating accordingly.

Shakespeare once said Brevity is the soul of wit. If that’s true, Napalm Death is the wittiest band of all time. If it takes you more than 58 seconds to get your point across you need to go back to songwriting school.

Scum is definitely one of the most odd albums on this list and that gives it a unique charm that not a lot of other albums have. This album has a very interesting structure with it being 28 songs but a lot of them are extremely short with one being only 5 seconds long. The general songs are also out of the ordinary with it having your typical thrash/death metal beats but with some incredibly fast drumming and vocals which almost make it sound like the vocalist is barking like a dog. This album can get a little samey and easy to lose track of due to being so short but i still love this album's charm and the more conventional thrash/death metal parts do sound really great so i'm giving this album a 3.5.
Best Song: Scum
Worst Song: Multinational Corporations

"That's a no from me, dog."

--Randy Jackson

Highlight of this album is a couple of songs around the middle that made me think "hm, maybe this isn't so bad", before promptly being remembered exactly why I wasn't enjoying this. It sounds like Motorhead if Lemmy was slightly more incomprehensible.

I'm down for heavy/experimental music but grindcore just isn't my brand I guess. The gutteral vocals don't work for me and the instrumentation feels a bit too focused on sheer technicality without consideration for how it actually sounds. I realize the irony of saying that as a big math rock fan too!