Scum

Napalm Death’s second album, From Enslavement to Obliteration — the first to feature long-serving bassist Shane Embury — is often held up as their classic, and certainly it’s a little more fully formed in its fusion of filthy squat punk with death/thrash metal. But Scum is a perfect album in its own way: the punk side is a little more dominant, and its directness — just blast after blast of pure distortion and fury — is still incredibly invigorating to this day. It’s a beautiful brain-scourer of a record, above and beyond its huge influence on all extreme music that followed.