There are some bands who you know are going to absolutely rip without hearing a single note of music, solely based off their moniker alone. Case in point: Scumripper. How that name hadn’t already been poached by some crust band 30+ years ago is beyond me, but hey, I’m not complaining. Couple this with the fact that the band’s latest album, For a Few Fixes More, is presented to us courtesy of Portland based miscreants Headsplit Records, and yours truly had to give this affair a listen, if only out of morbid curiosity.
At their core, Scumripper are a tried and true metalpunk band, in the purest definition of the term. Some songs taps harder into the first wave of black metal and ’80s death metal vein than others, especially the latter. However, what these Finnish freaks specialize in is blurring the line between rock’s two bastard children ever so filthily, with rampaging d-beats and pogo mosh passages coexisting with Hellhammerian riffage and an aura of metallic insanity. It’s truly “crossover”, belonging to metalheads, crusties, and anybody else who dare give them a listen alike.
The opening “I Am the Trash of Evil Men” establishes this pissed off metalpunk ethos early on, with its anarchistic guitars and vocals that can only be described as venomous snarls. Discharged flavored outbursts like “Early Embittered Twilight” and “Exhume the Body and Disturb the Peace” (what a title) further expand upon the formula, sounding as if they crawled straight out of an English gutter circa ’82. It’s simple and straightforward, nothing we haven’t heard before, but executed in a manner that demands our attention in the most hostile manner imaginable.
On the contrary are the ’80s metal moments, which are truly this outing’s high point. “The Slime” slows things down with its bulldozing riff onslaught, proving Scumripper can be just as impactful at a slower pace as a frantic one. From “Crippling Void” on, we’re treated to an album that morphs its way from metalpunk mania to mid ’80s death metal artifact. I’m sure some dork will make his way into the comments and say, “Oh, that just sounds like midtempo thrash.”, to which I say, “Get lost you revisionist prick.” The suffocating atmosphere and unrelenting riffs on “I Cum Pain” (again, what a title), “Weather the Swarm”, and the aforementioned “Crippling Void” channel Necrophagia and Slaughter at their most unhinged.
In a sea of new death metal bands who looked at the likes of Cannibal Corpse and Obituary and decided to go copy/paste, Scumripper stands out and is all the more unique. They channel the sheer insanity of death metal in its infancy circa ’85, when it was a mere offshoot of thrash heard exclusively on demo tapes. They equally channel the metallized street punk and anarchistic crust that dominated the back alleys of England in the early ’80s. Put these two together and you’ve got a lethal combination at hand. Make no mistake: I’ll be sure to indulge in quite a few fixes of For a Few Fixes More.
7 out of 10
Label: Headsplit Records
Genre: Death Metal/Punk
For fans of: Nekrofilth, Slaughter, Repulsion