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Napalm Death enjoyed a peak of notoriety especially after their debut (1987) and at least until the early '90s, when they were then absorbed by a trend they themselves had helped to create and in which, somehow, they physically dispersed. Members of Napalm, in fact, boast a significant curriculum of collaborations and side projects.
The album with which they revealed themselves to the entire world was "Scum" (literally scum meaning dregs). On the green cover of the vinyl, there was a sticker label that declared something like this: the undisputed fastest band in the world - 28 tracks of furious brutal grindcore.
A lot of furious and brutal music had already been heard around the mid-'80s. Starting from Slayer’s brilliant masterpiece "Reign in Blood," the empire of distorted guitars already seemed destined to have a massive influence on the generations to come and on the evolution of metal in a broad sense. But the bizarre and extreme novelty of Lee Dorrian and Mitch Harris's band was precisely the extremization of execution speed, which bordered on a sonic blend in the strict sense: drums hammered in a continuum of cymbals-snare-bass almost simultaneously, tormented guitars, distorted bass, and cavernous voice with a 10% comprehensibility rate of the words.
Except for some lyrical flashes of a more traditional imprint, appearing here and there, the tracks of "Scum" ran inexorably towards a funnel of magmatic madness, dragged by an anarchic spirit (which can only be inferred from the content by reading the lyrics) and by a destructive will that did honor to the band's very name.
Moments of pure divertissement in the screamed shouts, alternating with demonic grumblings worthy of a gargle with boiling pitch, lead to the ingenious paroxysm of pieces like "You Suffer", which lasts so briefly that it resolves itself in a single turn of the needle (on the old vinyl) and produces a kind of animal grunt: the only four words of the lyrics ("you suffer but why?") condense into a single second!
The extreme turn of Napalm Death, however, was a point of arrival from which it would have been difficult to unstick. Indeed, if Slayer at the time seemed unpleasantly noisy compared to metal standards and then in turn acquired a comprehensible and evolvable standard, the contemporary Napalm marked the ultimate boundary between noise and music, and to this day, the tracks of "Scum" continue to seem unpleasantly noisy! The fact is that even their more recent productions ("Smear Campaign" for example) do not deviate much from the parameters of "Scum".... indeed, if anything they have partially refined the style by sanding it down from certain approximations of the early days.
Intense and decisive, however, was the contribution of their ideological manifesto, in which the music seems more a physical expression than the central pivot of the message launched against multinationals and the exploitation of peoples. The skull-faced vampire on the cover protecting the feudal lords of the chemical industry and banks casts a sinister shadow over the emaciated faces of Third World people: Napalm Death expressed with all possible fury the contours of a concept that needs more inhuman screams than lyrics. Hence, we care little about the comprehensibility of the lyrics (moreover written in the insert): the anguish of poverty and slavery generates the thunderous eruption of the fastest band in the world.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Instinct of Survival (02:26)
Advertise the product you make,
never give, but always take.
Kill and lie for security.
On supermarket shelves death to see.
Instinct of survival
Advertise the product you make,
never give and always take,
clingfilmed flesh and genocide,
contented life, while millions die.
Instinct of survival
The multinational corporation
takes its profits from the Starving Nations.
Indigenous people become their slaves
from their births into their graves.
The multinational corporation
takes its profits from the starving nations.
Another product for you to buy,
you'll keep paying, until you die.
03 The Kill (00:22)
There's nothing left to gain
You have just been led
The kill, after death, the kill
The shit you were promised
Means nothing now you're dead
The kill, after death, the kill
04 Scum (02:38)
In your mind
Nothing but fear
You can't face life
Or believe death's near
A vision of life
On television screens
An existance created
From empty dreams
Hide behind T.V.
Hide behind life
You should be living
But you only survive
Life holds nothing
But pain and death
Don't look for love
There is none left
06 Polluted Minds (00:58)
They not only pollute the air
They pollute our minds
They're destroying the earth
And destroying mankind
Polluted minds
Kill mankind
They don't give a shit
Long as profits are high
They don't give a shit
If people die
Polluted minds
Kill mankind
07 Sacrificed (01:06)
Taking beauty from Rabbits eyes.
Real beauty is denied.
Sacrificed
Spiky hair makes Rabbits cry.
One day soon, you will fucking die !
08 Siege of Power (03:59)
Siege of power
In your land
Too many problems
For you to understand
Siege of power
Inside your mind
Outward restrictions
To keep you in line
Siege of power - in your land
Too many problems - for you to understand
A slave of their power - you never question why
Your going to suffer - you're going to die
Siege of power - inside your mind
Outward restrictions - to keep you in line
You're a slave of their power - you never questioned why
You were made to suffer - you were born to die
Siege of power
They made you a tool
While others were ruling
You were being ruled
09 Control (01:23)
There is a fascist inside of you,
controlling your life and what you do.
Fascist control.
There is a fascist inside your head,
controlling your mind until you're dead.
Fascist control.
10 Born on Your Knees (01:48)
Born on your knees
Life in chains
A slow death
Into your graves
Born on your knees
Born on your knees
Life of pain
Existence restricted
By material gains
Born on your knees
You fucking asshole
Born on your knees
Conditioned blind
Crawling of death
Revenge for your crime
Born on your knees
Born on your knees
From the womb torn
Live in chains
And die as you were born
Born on your knees
13 Life? (00:43)
Never hope nor choice
Emotionless and cold
This is life
Illusions shattered
An existance of lies
Constant struggle
Freedom denied
At their feet
Submission
No sanctuary in death
Drugged up fucked up
Is that all you're worth?
16 Negative Approach (00:32)
Nothing I can say
That hasn't already been said
Generic words and thoughts
Similarly expressed
This primitive stance
Feeling of angst
Matters relating
To circumstance
"Unfounded actions
Just part of the faction"
Conform?
I would't give you the satisfaction
17 Success? (01:08)
Climb the ladder, your security
Upward social mobility
Consume the lies "It's what you need"
Vicious circle of mindless greed
Where is your success gained from?
What of the lives you're shat upon?
Caught in the web you'll play the game
An artifical life but who's to blame?
18 Deceiver (00:28)
Becoming wary of your lies
Your disguise the truth belies
Only fooling yourself
Pretend to bite the hand that feeds
But you won't discard your security
The transparency of your fantasy
20 Parasites (00:23)
Permissive slaves
To their methods of greed
From our needs
The leeches feed
When will you see?
We'll never be free
While we sanction
This plutocracy
21 Pseudo Youth (00:41)
Same pre-determinated
Pattern, game, rules
Uniformity
Conformity
How long can you hide the truth
Now you've settled down
Reflected on your past
The pose, the look, the stance
All part of the act
25 Moral Crusade (01:32)
Superiority complex
Pious, holy to the hilt
Outward displays cleanliness
Masking inner feelings of hate and guilt
Your morality is hypocrisy
Your obsessive self esteem
Enforcing your ideals
Your puritanical dream
Gather your flock
Gullible fools
Dictate restrictions
27 M.A.D. (01:36)
Stark, bleak, wasted
Devastated
When?
All life
Totally annihilated
Die!
Does it have to be this way
Is this the price we're gonna pay?
28 Dragnet (01:01)
The ascension of human intelligence
To atomic genocide
Homo Sapiens = the disease the cause the pollution
Erase the aeons of evolutions
Pushed too far, just a matter of time
Seemingly nothing to halt the tide...
...Except the end - accept the end?
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By diamond_darrell
Napalm Death. Just the name says it all.
28 brief and explosive tracks of sonic violence and acoustic destruction, for an incredibly monstrous half-hour of music.
