Unlike many people believe, NAPALM DEATH aren’t the true inventers of Grindcore, as that honour belongs to REPULSION, but they were without doubt the band that pulled the trigger, installing this ultra sick genre in the map since the mid 80s. On the other hand, it is important to remember that original Grind is absolutely different to what we know today as the style and it has its roots in Punk and not in Metal.

“Scum”, the debut album of this monster, a milestone over which big things were built. It’s one of the dirtiest, ugliest and most underdeveloped albums ever made. Of course that was the aesthetic looked by a band that had made cacophony as creative value and if they wanted people to drown in shit and creep in a tangled jungle of human misery while listening, they did it with brilliancy.

28 rotten tracks are spread in a bit more than a half hour and everything it’s a smelly soup of uncoordinated drums, highly distorted strings and horrible vocals that don’t seem to contain any words. There is not a single residue of talent or organization, but who need that when you’re trying to be the soundtrack for the worst filth on earth?

Lyrically, “Scum” is a Punk album, being that scum the trans-national enterprises, human lowness, T.V., politicians etc. It’s the typical anarchist speech of being against everything, a strong disobedient attitude that in this case shocks. This was a heavy scream from the underground that maybe didn’t make the fat fishes in the Coca-Cola headquarters to feel afraid, but represented the voice of a desperate generation that saw its dreams suffocated by an oppressive system.

That’s all I have to say about this scum, now run to get your illegal copy, because if you buy it you’ll be feeding that evil machinery represented by the music business. (Online January 22, 2006)