SCOUR – SCOUR – CD REVIEW

When you put heavy hitting members of Cattle Decapitation, Pig Destroyer, Decrepit Birth, Strong Intention and Philip H Ansemlo in a studio together, you’d expect something scathingly brutal to gestate and emerge. Your expectation is rewarded with their newest project Scour.

From the moment this 6 track Black Metal arson attack burns into your ears with the manic, searing opener, Dispatched, you know you’re in for a fierce, exciting audible ride. This is ‘Black Metal’ stripped bare of the makeup and theatrical veneer of bands like Cardle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir. As a result Scour are raw and grimy in nature, delivering each track with an abrasive ferocity and unquestionable passion for the craft of producing extreme music.

This album has no time to allow your ears or brain a second’s respite from it’s unrelenting pace and attack, as it shreds through it’s half a dozen tracks in a demon’s breath short of 13 minutes. I genuinely believe that if I had no clue who the members of this band were, I’d still review it as a ‘Black Metal’ album at the top of it’s game, that sounds and feels authentic and would sit comfortably among the Norwegian bands that built the genre that inspired it. 

The staggeringly high quality of this all too short album is testament to the experience of extreme music within the band. It’s easy for Black Metal to fall into the realm of a generic stereotype, but Scour have no such concerns. The music here is not just extreme for the sake of being extreme, it’s full of hooks and groove, with an almost punk-esque attitude and feel. There’s an unpolished, crusty feel to the production that many early Black Metal pioneers like Burzum and Immortal intentionally set out to achieve. That said, it’s produced with all the punch and clarity you’d want from a current release.

What Scour have achieved on this eponymous release is nothing short brilliance. It’s fast, heavy, unsettling, extreme metal at it’s best. It only falls short of a full 10/10 rating because, in my opinion, it’s too short. My advice? Give your church and any surrounding structure a liberal coat of fire retardant paint before spinning this album because this Black Metal fueled monster will burn everything it touches like a coked up Balrog. 

Score 9/10

Scour Information                                                                                                          

Track Listing
1-Dispatched
2-Clot
3- Crooked
4- Codes
5- Tactics
6- Tear Gas

Release Date
16/06/2016

Record Label
Housecore Records

For fans of…

Burzum, Immortal, Emperor, Dimmu Borgir

Check out Scour on Facebook and order their self-titled debut here!