Search - Scorn :: Stealth

Heavy, Dark, Minimal downtempo masterpiece....

Scorn | United States | 11/06/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"[review taken from the label's description of the album]



Let it be heard : 15 years since his début and 5 since his last studio album: Mick Harris breaks the silence and delivers with "Stealth" one of his most massive works so far. Staying faithful to his trademark sound, this corner-stone of a musician, constantly redefining the boundaries of electronic music, delivers here 8 salvoes of monumental bass, sparse dry beats and deep drones. Let it be heard: Scorn is back.



Few musician can boast such a prolific and influential catalog as Mick Harris. Not only has his main project, Scorn, been re-defining and expanding the scope of electronic music and dub, but Harris's discography, featuring literally hundreds of releases, spawns from his début as the original drummer of Napalm Death to a founding member of Painkiller (with Bill Laswell and John Zorn) as well as such seminal projects as the ambient Lull, the drum'n'bass of Quoit or his participation to Extreme Noise Terror. To cut a long story short, (electronic) music wouldn't be the same if this Birmingham-based musician wasn't there.



Fifteen years after Scorn's début, and five whole years after his latest studio album, it is a transformed Mick Harris (noticeably by his come-back to his drum set) that deliver "Stealth", Scorn's 13th full length studio album. And while music has evolved a lot since 1992's "Vae Solis", Scorn has stayed true to his trademark sound. Downtempo, illbient, dubstep have come and gone, but Scorn remains the epitome of minimal, dry beats, wall-of-sound unequalled basses and deep, mesmerizing drones.



Not only a massive, bodily experience, Scorn's monumental tracks (which have proved over the years to provide for unforgettable live sets) impress by their focus and efficiency. Keeping only the bare minimum of what defines dub, Scorn drives these few elements (sparse beats, echoes, and most of all, bass) to their extreme. A godfather of the current come-back of slow, heavy basses in club music, Scorn's method still stand out with its towering, dark and minimal approach. "Stealth" is no exception. Spacious in its execution, oppressive, humongous in its outcome; let it be heard: Scorn is back.



Mastered at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin."

Another view

P. Couture | Santa Cruz, CA USA | 07/02/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"If audio clips were available, you'd hear eight "variations" on the same four elements - thud, snap, foreground drone (always the same one), and background color (delay/echo). All eight songs have the same tempo. I bought this because I liked "Evanescence" fifteen years ago. If you're expecting something like that, forget it. This is "minimal" in the worst sense - bland and repetitive. There aren't enough ideas here to support an album."

Mick Harris schools the Dubsteppers!

J. Mcmillan | Oakland, CA | 11/16/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The long awaited new Scorn cd (first in 4 years) has finally arrived, and it does not disappoint! Wasting no time at all, the first track, "Stripped Back Hinge", fills the low sub range with the familiar nasty warble and snap beats, and it just gets nastier from there. With a slightly slower tempo and looser bass than previous Scorn records, the sounds here are less a tip of the hat to the current Dubstep scene as it is a dare: just try to make something as tense or as evil sounding! The best electronic release of the year, by far."