Send "S.C.U.M. " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Guardian |
 The debut from SCUM proves two things. First, that suggestions they are the baby brother band of the Horrors are hardly inaccurate. They share DNA at a biological level – bassist Huw Webb is brother to Rhys Webb of the Horrors – and at a musical one, with the baleful voice of Thomas Cohen – echoing Richard Butler of the Psychedelic Furs, a key influence on the last Horrors album – laid over swirling synths and occasional motorik rhythms. Second, though, is that they don't deserve to be overshadowed: Again Into Eyes stands entirely on its own merits. They pile on the melodrama – Days Untrue couldn't sound more windswept if it was placed in front of a wind machine – but there's a muscular kick, too, as when the guitars roar in on Amber Hands. Crucially, S.C.U.M. understand concision – only the closer Whitechapel strays over five minutes. This is no underdone confection from fly-by-nights: it's as taut and accomplished as any British rock album this year....full text |
| Spin |
| They can name themselves after an infamous radical-feminist essay and collaborate with all the cutting-edge visual artists they want, but that doesn't change the fact that S.C.U.M.'s greatest selling point is a singer, Thomas Cohen, who somehow sounds like a more sexily disenchanted version of the Violent Femmes' Gordon Gano. This guitarless London quartet tries to seduce you with darkly ambient keyboard flourishes, ghostly vocals, and a bold disavowal of obvious hooks. But Again Into Eyes only truly perks up near the end when they call up their inner Psychedelic Furs on more straightforwardly swooning ballads like "Faith Unfolds." By Michael Tedder...full text |
| Pitchfork |
| Look up any review of S.C.U.M. in the British music press, and you're likely to encounter the phrase "little Horrors," a diminutive comparison to the band that put out this year's fine LP Skying. This was S.C.U.M.'s first handy hook for the NME-- not only because bassist Huw Webb is the younger brother of the Horrors' Rhys Webb, but also because the bands share traits on the musical and magazine-ready haircuts-and-cheekbones levels. This seems like the sort of tag the younger quintet would be eager to shake off, the better to stand on their own feet, but it's a lineage S.C.U.M. can't entirely lose on debut album Again Into Eyes. In the two years since their formation, S.C.U.M. have followed a strikingly similar path to that of their elders: Both began as brash, noisy outfits-- the Horrors as goth garage shriekers, S.C.U.M. with a reputation for no-wave noise-making live shows-- and have arrived in 2011 at an atmosphere-heavy, 1980s-influenced rock sound that's less abrasive and vastly more ambitious than those origins might've predicted. That tends to mean impeccably produced moody, mid-tempo rock songs, swaddled in vaporous synth textures, and led by seductively fainting singing. In S.C.U.M., the singing's done by Thomas Cohen, whose breathy, soft moaning smears across the rhythms on "Summon the Sound", drifting over the edge of the beat as it fades into the distance. It's a familiar effect, but Cohen's singing sounds less affected and more skillful than that of the Horrors' Faris Badwan. Another important distinction: While the Horrors recently rounded off the edges of their guitar tones (to the point of largely obscuring the instrument's original sound), S.C.U.M. have done away with guitars almost entirely in favor of keyboards and synthesizers. (A less commonly mentioned but perhaps more interesting family tie is that S.C.U.M. keyboardist Samuel Kilcoyne is the son of Add N to (X)'s Barry Smith-- one imagines him inheriting a pile of pristine-condition Moog synthesizers for his 16th birthday.) One six-string features on single "Amber Hands", and there may be some more deep in the mix elsewhere (band member Bradley Baker is credited with "machines, press," which leaves room for some ambiguity). Either way, the band relies less on sharp, mix-piercing leads than on amorphous washes from which the melodies gently emerge-- it's an accomplished sound, one that may not immediately dispense with the comparisons that have dogged the band, but one that does suggest a group more than capable of outgrowing the associations....full text |
S.C.U.M. lyrics Music videoclips
|
| |||||||
