18th April 2022

Review: “The Hunger” by The Scum

Forged in the heat of Manizales, city of the Eje Cafetero, in the cradle of Extreme Metal in Colombia in 2013, The Scum are a band dedicated to and strongly influenced by the Horror genre in films and literature and the sounds of Old School Meath Metal and in their time have been elected as openers for prominent acts as Destruction, Tim Ripper Owens and The Haunted to name but a few. In their wake they have left behind a trail of destruction since 2015 with two EPs and an album to their name and a guest vocal from Dave Ingram of Benediction accompanied by a music video for the title track of their 2020 release “Dead Eyes” directed by Colombian most important horror director Juan Diego Escobar remains their biggest to date.

Recorded and mixed at Bad Home Studio Manizales Colombia and Mastered in Unisound AB Sweden by legendary producer Dan Swanö (Buried Realm, Oceans Of Slumber), “The Hunger” is a record front loaded with machine gun drum fills, savage riffs and nasty Death Metal vocals, the very definition of Old School Death Metal. The recording itself is a little on the raw side of things with a slightly muddy drum sound lifted by the bands ability to rip a solo out from any orifice at a few seconds notice and often on multiple occasions during each cut, permiating them with sinister moments to add to the brooding, dark and menacing atmospherics. As the song titles and foreword suggest the lyrics are filled with Horror genre theatrics with Jose Fernando Ospina the consumate black lunged story teller with larynx threatening vocal abilities, the title track being an expertly executed tale of a werewolves bloodlust as depicted by the cover by The Art of Yan Sek. The Old School buzz saw rhythm guitars are inspired by older works from the golden era of bands like Entombed, Benediction and to a lesser extent Pestilence and for the most part they work really well however the tone they’ve chosen to use means that some parts lack definition in comparison with those finger blistering leads, the climbing one on “Redemption” being an absolute pleasure before the galloping drum fills into blasting beings it home. Then you have the unexpected sinister introduction melody of “Withered Faith” has cinematic until the darkness surrounds like a thick fog choking off the air supply to all those enveloped, not to mention the rapid fire “The Death Of Light“. As densely packed and anvil heavy as the album is, it just feels like there is something missing from it to elevate the raw material to the next level. Whether it’s in the rhythm guitars or the ferocious barked vocals or the combination of the two, “The Hunger” just feels like it needs a couple of moments of quality, with either a shriller vocal element or a downtempo moment or two to put The Scum on the World map [6/10]

Track Listing