By Design

I found Scumpulse on Bandcamp. I was searching through the "crust punk" tag, and the name "Scumpulse" caught my eye. It struck me as particularly metal, which really ought to have been a sign because Scumpulse is a metal band. And in fact, it's rather confusing that they tag themselves as crust, because in all actuality they're some of the best black metal in recent memory.

Now, in the interest of fairness there is some notable influence from hardcore and punk, and the 'crust punk' label isn't completely unwarranted. But from the first few chords of EP opener "La Mer", it's clear that the band listens to a lot more Dissection than Disfear. Icy lead guitars buzzsaw over blast beats and chord progressions that stay eternally minor. Lyrics include "I fill up your lungs / Infect you like pleurisy" (and that's on the positive side). The mood conjured by the music really can't be compared to anything besides '90s black metal, and it's a pleasure to hear that in the mid-2010s.

The punk influence, though sparse, is welcome too. Most of it is found in the lyrics - the cleverly titled "Home Is Where You Hang Yourself" features lyrics that seem cherry-picked from UK crust and California hardcore. But even the punk rock lyricism is filtered through extreme metal - "Griefer" features the punk one-two "I'm happy as a cancer on society", but follows it up with "I will eat you with my blackness". I've never heard Caustic Christ sing a line like that.

When the hardcore influence shows up musically, it's more than appropriate. Their songs take cues from the best hardcore by getting right to the point. One of the worst features about black metal is the tendency of inexperienced bands to equate quantity with quality. Sure, Burzum and Darkthrone have written their fair share of 10-minute epics, but they had a vision. Scumpulse doesn't insult the listener's intelligence by hammering out the same riff over and over. Four and a half minutes might not sound short and snappy, but compared to many bands in the scene it's just about the snap of your fingers.

The only real problem that the EP has is exclusive to the re-release. By Design's original tracklist features five spectacular songs. Its re-release, however, features three cover tunes. The first is an incredibly ill-conceived Oi Polloi remake. Though bands like All Pigs Must Die prove that punk and metal can mix to great effect, the extreme difference in Scumpulse's black metal sound and the traditional punk rock of Oi Polloi is extreme enough that Scumpulse sounds positively silly playing such simple riffs. Sadly, the only cover that should have worked - the Immortal classic "Call of the Wintermoon - suffers from the opposite problem. The band actually sounds too comfortable playing Immortal riffs, and the cover does a great job of showing just how much of Scumpulse's sound is indebted to Abbath and Demonaz.

At the end of the day, though, you really can't judge a band too harshly when the worst part of the record is the songs they didn't write. And Scumpulse delivers a spectacular debut full of kvlt riffing, scathing lyrics and powerful lead guitars that put many black metal legends to shame. I'd firmly recommend this EP to anyone with ears, and if this is an indication of things to come, their debut album will surely be a classic.