Band : Scum
Album title : The Painful Illusion
Label : Own release
Distributor : /
Release date : February 2010
Release : CD

Hailing from the town of Grosseto (situated aprox. 10 kms from the shoreline, some 150 kms North from Rome) this Thrash-influenced Death Metal quintet was founded in 1999. However, it took a coiuple of line-up changes before the steady core trio of Leonardo Priori (vocals), Stefano Mascioli (guitar) and Valerio Bresca (drums) started writing their own songs, which would find their way onto 2 self-produced demos.

In 2003 the band changed their underground status, recording (in Milano, with producer Fabio Magistrali) and releasing their official debut full-length CD Welcome. The album was given a warm welcome (no pun intended) by many magazines and websites, became Top Demo on Metalitalia.com, and brought the band plenty of gigging opportunities…including support slots with such more established acts as Subliminal Crasher, Eyeconoclast, Node, Subhuman, Extrema, Paradox, Coram Lethe, Mortuary Drapes, and more. It would take the band 4 years to come up with sophomore album Re-Evolution, which again got a warm reception (“Maniac Demo” in Maniac magazine, July ’07).

Following that release, the band not only went through another line-up change (with guitarist Sebastian Bassi and bassist Simon Blust completing the band’s quintet today), but also went in search for a more personal composition style. And when listening to this mini-album (with 8 tracks it’s only just over 31 minutes long) I would have to say the band certainly succeeded in that goal! For sure, they achieved some variety in their music through the incertion of several instrumentals (opening track “Intro”, acoustic diddy “Lullaby For A Sad Girl (Part II)”, and the outro of closing track “Green Room (Bed N°4)”, which was taken off Sadist’s From Bellatrix To Betelgeuze album). In the songs the band cleverly mixes Thrashed-up Melodic Death Metal (plenty of great lead stuff, and not just mindless riffing) which plenty of break-stop moments that leave plenty of room for each and every one of the musicians to shine. On top, the singer maintains a Thrash-influenced rough type of singing style, rather than get near the usual Death growls or grunts. Still in the same vein, “Lullaby For A Sad Girl (Part I)” brings sóme vocal variety through the (vocal) participation of some frantically unhappy Italian girl (and try as I might, even after about 10 listening sessions or so I have been unable to translate the words she utters). If your knowledge of the Italian language is a little more advanced, maybe you’ll be able to tell me what she’s on about, eh? You can check out the song (and 3 more songs) at myspace.com/bandscum (see that you enter the correct adddress, because there’s more scum around…sorry, lame joke, I know…of course I meant that there’s more bands by the name Scum out there). There’s samples of three more tracks (including the acoustic instrumental) at the media section of the band’s own website (www.) scum.it.

89/100

Tony.