Napalm Death Scum is another one of those albums I heard in say 1990 and thought to myself “What is this crap?”. Again having only just heard Slayer, Sodom etc that year it was hard to get my head around this initially. There was so much new stuff to absorb at the time so it would be a few years before I came back to give this a chance. It wasn’t until their third album “Harmony Corruption” came out that I could really say I was a fan of the band and then upon hearing cleaner versions of the song as performed by the Harmony Corruption lineup I was able to go back and Develop some level of understanding as to what was going on.
This is Napalm’s first studio album released midway through 1987. The band had formed as kids in the very early 80s (Suprisingly in 1981) and seen a lot of people come and go from the band. Even during the duration of the recording of this album it had different vocalists, Justin Broderick and Lee Dorian both contributed (I think they each got a half of the record). Infact only the drummer, Mick Harris played on the whole album. The band initially formed as a crust punk band (Which was the thing at the time) and evolved over time to incorporate metal and basically head straight for being one of the most intense bands ever. I have to say they’ve succeed there. The vocals were incoherent compared to anything on at the time, and Naplalm Death was one of the first (if not THE first) to feature “blast beats” on record.
It’s hard to understand what exactly went on with the recording of this album but I believe the first side of the album was recorded in 1986 and featured older songs re-recorded with the lineup of that day, and the second side recorded in 1987 with the next lineup, featuring Bill Steer (who went on to form Carcass). When one listens to the album as a whole you can kind of hear the different lineup and production on the second half of the recording. Which initially was one of my issues with it, it sounded inconsistent, like 2 different bands, which to some degree it probably was. Personally I like the first half the recording better, as the second half sounds a little muddy.
The album features some great and very infectious riffage and very intense songs. Now as a middle aged man with the benefit of hindsight I can look back on this album and appreciate how good and especially how ground breaking this is. This combines the speed and intensity of crust punk (Not that I listen to much of that) with the emerging death metal scene at the time. Napalm was a breeding ground for musicians, many of whom from this record went on to form other great metal bands and could basically be regarded as fathering an entire scene. Grind-core.
My favourite songs would have to be “Seige of Power” and “Instinct of Survival” but really I like the first half in general, some stand out riffage where as the second half sounded a bit muffled, but puts forward a more straight ahead grind-core sound, which in itself is revolutionary.
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