Scum
Gospels For The Sick

Curious company of musicians that makes up the formation of Scum, sort of a super-group that involves prominent figures from the Norwegian black metal scene and beyond: Samoth (historic guitarist of Emperor, now axe of Zyklon), Cosmocrator (guitar of Mindgrinder), Faust (drummer in the legendary "In the Nightside Eclipse" of Emperor, then forced to leave due to legal issues), Happy-Tom (bassist of Turbonegro), and Casey Chaos (voice of the American Amen).

As a special guest, we also find Nocturno Culto (guitar and voice of the seminal Darkthrone), Mortiis (initially bassist in Emperor, then devoted to ambient-folk and finally an electronic elf in his last artistic phase), and Knut Euroboy Schreider (militant in both Turbonegro and Euroboys).

There's a lot going on, ultimately, for a reheated soup based on old school punk, vigorous hardcore, thrash, and black metal.

"Gospels for the Sick", from 2005, ultimately turns out to be a fairly useless operation, if you think about it, since it's not about a dialogical balance of genres far apart from each other, but rather an involutive reshuffle where each genre, from last to first and so on, contains the other as in a sort of ruthless food chain, where the bigger fish has in its belly the fish gradually swallowed. Essentially a black metal looking back at its origins. On the other hand, the project does not seem to have great ambitions, and if the intention was simply to have fun, to give vent to unexpressed urges, and to pay tribute to the much-loved music of childhood, the goal seems to have been fully achieved.

What comes out is a punk of convention, driven more by a childish sentimentality towards the genre than by real anti-system regurgitations. And so if "Gospels for the Sick" certainly doesn’t change the history of music, it will surely be a relief for the spirit: you keep it in the background, in the car, while jogging, when waking up on a Sunday morning while brushing your teeth, whenever the hell you like, and rest assured that "Gospels" won’t bore you. Wherever you are, with whomever you are, there will always be a tempo change that will kick your ass or a refrain that will make it jump. These are Scum, forget who plays in them. I have one more reason to like them: the simple fact that I no longer understand a damn thing about music, my ears are systematically bombarded with crap, and I've lost the finesse of hearing. Especially in metal, I no longer want to make many distinctions, to linger on guitar harmonics or bass drum triplets. Nor to compete in virility: mock me if you like, but fry my neurons, and I'll be satisfied! And forgive me if at the twilight of my life, I start to reevaluate "Diabolus in Musica" by Slayer: more and more, I believe that metal, crossbreeding with punk and hardcore, can only gain from it. If not in evolutionary terms, at least in freshness and attitude. Besides, I can't stand "Hell Awaits" anymore!

But back to us: Scum (not even original in choosing the moniker!) have been defined as the missing link between Motorhead and Darkthrone, and there's no denying those who have labeled them as such: dirty sounds, unhinged screams, buzzing guitars, explosive drumming (but nice to hear you again, Faust!). The hand, needless to say, remains heavy, and the impression will be more than anything else that of hearing Slayer covering punk with Johnny Rotten on vocals.

You won't be shocked, nor will you cry out for a miracle, but piece by piece you will find a reason to listen to what you are hearing, even if overall it will continue not to fully convince: "Protest Life," "Gospels for the Sick," "Thrown up on You," "Night of the 1000 Deaths" are anthems to sing out loud, between protest and disengagement, anger and high spirits (just think of the chorus of "Thrown up on You" which calls to mind the most festive Misfits). Because we're talking about speed-metal, but a speed-metal that does not disdain catchy and memorable moments. Perhaps pandering. Solutions that certainly do not equate to a tenth of the technical and creative potential of the musicians involved but are at the same time so irresistible precisely because they are rooted in the ABC of the most authentic carefree music: that bite-and-run, beat-and-have-fun music. A type of music that will probably never get old.

Faust travels like a real beauty, and it's a genuine pleasure to abandon oneself gradually to the caustic and dark slowdowns, more directly linked to the black metal tradition, which perfectly suit the declamatory howling of a Casey Chaos who seems to have no regard for his vocal cords. We talk about darkness, and so how not to mention "Truth won't be Sold", the "slow" of the situation: a dark and obsessive Slayerian digression that retrieves the crackling guitars that made the fortune of Samoth and comrades in the early nineties. "Hate the Sane" and then "Deathpunkscumfuck", not even two minutes that even four impromptu slackers could not do worse: songs (songs?) written (written?) in the time it takes to insert the jack into the amplifier, play them, and indulge alcoholic and amphetamine urges. And the carousel continues, animated by the oldest intentions of rock'n'roll: "Road to Sufferage" (oh how I love you, Faust!) and "Backstabbers Go to Heaven", because the important thing is not to stop and keep moving straight.

Because at the end of the day, these five bards of the restoration of the most primitive and iconoclastic punk demonstrate they know how to embody the spirit and moods of a global basement that could be located in London, Detroit, or Oslo. The only track that shines with a certain originality is the closing "The Perfect Mistake", sung by Nocturno Culto, a track that not coincidentally brings us back to the controversial black’n’roll of the latest Darkthrone. A piece in which the axis shifts from the metropolitan dimension to the forests of Norway but without losing the "in your face!" attitude.

To be clear, a useless purchase. A purchase that can have some relevance for those who come from metal and, not digesting punk raw and unfiltered, inevitably need an equivalent surrogate. A purchase, finally, that can be quite enjoyable also for those who listen to a lot of music and decidedly do not live on seminal albums alone.

Hence why, crap more, crap less, the substance doesn't change...