Grindcore for Beginners Part 3 - Origins

Napalm Death
Scum
Earache Records (UK; 1987)


Ok, so it's part 3 now and we're finally onto proper grindcore. And where better to start than with the album that kicked the whole thing off?

I won't bore you with Scum trivia - it seems every time someone mentions this album they talk about how the A side and B side were essentially recorded by two different bands, how "You Suffer" was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the shortest song ever recorded, how Napalm Death basically invented grindcore, etc., so I'll just assume you know all that already. I'm just going to dive straight into the music.

The previous two installments have been basically a warm-up, preparing you for this record; Scum takes the joy of punk, the bass-end heft and rumble of crust and the sheer speed and aggression of hardcore and turns them up to 11. The vocals are guttural, grunting, bear-like; Bill Steer (Side B) and Justin Broadrick (Side A) play riffs that come at you like a freight train, only breaking into the upper end of the scale with a few screeching solos; and the whole thing is held together by the hyperspeed blastbeats of Mick Harris, the only member present on both sides of the record.

This is a great starting point for our exploration into grind proper, not just because it was the first real grindcore record, but because it represents perfectly one of the key aspects of grindcore. The subgenre has always been a combination of metal and punk, and while I'm not going to get into the (seemingly endless) debate about which genre grind leans to more, it's clear that it began in punk. Napalm Death's earliest demos sound like a cross between Crass and Discharge, and while the band were all into death metal, it's pretty clear that Scumowes more to the low-budget anger of punk than the theatrics of metal. Scum exemplifies the punk end of grindcore, from the dirt-cheap production to the political sloganeering of tracks like "Multinational Corporations" and "C.S. (Conservative Shithead)" (love that title). While Side B leans more towards metal with the buzzsaw guitar tone, this is undeniably a punk record from beginning to end.

While Napalm Death would eventually move into more metal territory, to mixed reactions from fans, this album shows their punk roots more than any other, and that's part of the reason it's one of their best.

So turn it up and enjoy.