Review: Global Scum – Odium

In 2017 the Austrian one-man-band Global Scum of Manuel Harlander released its debut album called Hell is Home. Now, two years later Hell is Home gets a successor. Odium, as Hell is Home‘s successor is called, is released on July the 19th via NRT-Records.

Do you like music which offers no option to sit still while listening because it’ll make you want to let all your energy burst out? Fantastic, because then this album sure is something nice for you! Odium contains a lot of energy and Manuel exactly knows how to transfer that energy to an album without losing anything of it.

Lunatic, the creepy, apocalypse-like intro immediately gets you in the right vibe for this album. There is already a bit of out bursting energy to be heard, especially vocal-wise, but in Feared, the first song, this gets even more clearer. Feared starts with a short up-building intro, but after that it will pound through your speakers very heavily. However, it isn’t heavy and fast for the entire time. The less heavier moments are very well timed and very fitting, like the sirens on this song, however there are more of these rare but very well timed less heavy moments to be found on Odium. A few examples of that are the atmosphere-contributing samples during the intro of Disgusting Lust of Madness or at the end of the German-sung Martyrium.

However, the main part of Odium rages on at a very fast pace. To get an example of this be sure to check out the thrashy/hardcore punk-like Fake as Fuck, Assassins or closing song Mental Anxiety. Something that becomes very clear in that last mentioned song is how much effect the drums have pace-wise. Mental Anxiety contains a lot of moments with extremely thundering drums. These drums aren’t just very important in this song though, those are something very important on this entire album, no matter whether they are extremely thundering or not. That’s because the songs on Odium all contain very nice rhythmic song structures, especially drum-wise, as can be heard on, for example, Full of Hell, Human Waste and Violent Creation. So, that Global Scum’s Odium has become a very nicely grooving album isn’t a surprise knowing that. The only thing that is a bit unfortunate is that Global Scum is a one-man-band, because I think this would be something very nice while experience live during a show.

Besides the aforementioned drums, Odium of course also contains bass of which Manuel also shows a few nice riffs, such as on Fake as Fuck or the instrumental song Savage Killer, a song that in my opinion only becomes a bit interesting due to the used samples. However, to be honest, I think that this song is the only song on Odium that isn’t adding much to this album. Of course Odium also contains guitars. In, for example, Disgusting Lust of Madness and Assassins we hear a nice roaring guitar, while Manuel also delivers quite a few guitar solos, like in Feared, Martyrium and Assissins, in which this solo sounds quite quiet and a bit Eastern.

However, what’s standing out the most on Odium, together with the drums, are the vocals. Vocally Manuel brings quite some variation which makes listening to Odium a very nice experience while it also adds much to the quality of the album. A few examples are his clean vocals with a raw edge in Feared, his growls in Human Waste, his screams in Call for Resistance, but there also are some vocal details to be found on Odium, like the noisy vocals a bit after three minutes in Full of Hell and the “blegh!” in Martyrium. However, all vocals are sounding very aggressive and energetic, something that fits with the music very well.

My personal favorite song of Global Scum’s Odium is Martyrium, but that certainly wasn’t an easy choice, because Odium became a very nice and heavy pounding album with songs that all are very strong in their own way. The only exception, in my opinion, being the instrumental song Savage Killer.

Global Scum Official Website