"The gods of grind are back with another barrage of fierce, anarchistic, anti-capitalistic, politically charged music which is certain to make any corporate businessman and conservative politician crap themselves with fear.
Stylistically Napalm Death continue to explore the sound they have been operating with since the release of "Enemy of the Music Business" - that is, the music on "Utilitarian" combines grindcore elements with crust punk and death metal elements (although the death metal is much less dominant than on classics like "Utopia Banished" and "Harmony Corruption"), and the influence from The Swans - in the shape of, for instance, deep baritone choirs - was become an integrated part of the Napalm Death sound by now.
After a dark and almost epic instrumental in the form of 'Circumspect', the album is kicked into gear through 'Errors in the Signals', and the remainder of the album is a cornucopia of blastbeats, crust riffs, metal guitars, sudden changes, dissonance, and growls and screams. The overall impression is that of chaos - although, as we know, Napalm Death are in absolute control of every single note and beat. Greenway's vocals sound slimier and more aggressive than ever and, together with Harris' screams, they fit the aggressive music perfectly well.
An interesting dimension to this album is the occasional use of avant-garde elements, such as the above-mentioned Swans-inspired elements as well as the sick, tortured, insane saxophone that pops up in 'Everyday Pox'.
The production is quite clean actually but does not subtract from the aggression of the music, and the musicianship is - of course - top notch across the board.
Fans of Napalm Death should definitely invest in this album - it has all the elements that define post-2000 Napalm Death.
(review originally posted at metalmusicarchives.com)"
"One of the strange bastard children of metal and punk is grindcore, and "Scum" is one of the most important grindcore releases of all time, a seminal release in both grindcore and death metal - very much like Carcass' "Reek of Putrfaction".
As other reviewers have pointed out before me, this album is at lease as much a punk release as a metal release. While ther eis a lot of metal-like riffage on this album and blastbeats galore (there are even elements on the first half of the album which seem derived from hard rock, and, in addition, there are some Hellhammer/Celtic Frost-sounding breakdowns hither and thither), the DIY approach to production and the focus on expression rather than performance is very punky (and there are also a lot of simpler hardcore punk-like riffs). In addition the politically and socially aware lyrics were also more typical of punk music than metal music at the time.
Productionwise, the album is sloppy all the way through - especially the the tracks recorded by the Dorrian-fronted line-up. But at least it came out better than "Reek of Putrefaction"; "Reek..." is musically more interesting though. The bass is ridiculously distorted and everything sounds messy all the way through on "Scum", but that is, of course, considered a quality among punk music fans. The vocals are more interesting on the second half, as Dorrian experiments more with grunting, growling and screaming, while Nick Bullen mostly just yells, using the same rhythmic patterns all the way through.
Amidst all the noise, there are some very cool riffs, breakdowns and changes which make this album interesting for other reasons than its historic value, and, of course, this being political grindcore, the lyrics actually have something to say, which might be worthwhile (well, read the lyric sheets, because I don't think you'll be able to decipher them otherwise).
This is not a very good album in terms of musical quality. I like the expressive value and the outbursts of rage of the frantic blasting short tracks, and the energy of the more hardcore punkish midpaced tracks and breakdowns.
(review originally posted on metalmusicarchives.com)"
"While not progressive at all, the tracks on "Smear Campaign" er perhaps more complex than one might expect. Although the average song length is some 3 minutes long, virtually every song is packed with several riffs and figures ranging from frenzied blast beat accompanied noise riffs over catchy mosh friendly riffs to complex tech riffs with advanced chords; every song contains enough riffs for two or three standard rock songs. Certainly, this is quality stuff. I like Barney Greenway's grunting orc-like vocals, but I must admit I tend to giggle at Mitch Harris' high pitched screaming."
