Search - Scorn :: Vae Solis

Great album from the creators of GrindCore

Michael Payne | 06/10/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Vae Solis contains the original Napalm Death lineup- Justin, Nick, and Mick.! With this album, Scorn kicks out the speed/blur of Napalm and focuses on grinding/slow dirges. Very powerful and atmospheric. Godflesh fans will love this one as well, as it has Justin's signature guitar crunch and squall all over it. Expect very heavy metal,(like heavy Swans, Godflesh, Melvins, etc...) echoing/manipulated vocals, and punishing drumwork. Nothing at all like later Scorn which makes this album all the more unique; though it still has that trademark SCORN "soundtrack to a cool movie " quality that I've always loved. Go ahead and complete your Scorn collection with this one!"

The Dense Art of Isolationism

Pedro Mirones | Getxo (Spain) | 03/10/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is the first release from Mick Harris, Nicholas James Bullen and Justin K Broadrick of Napalm Death Death & Godflesh Fame after leaving Napalm Death before being just Harris himself over the 90's and 00's.
Beginning with "Spasm" a nearly slow godflesh influenced industrial metal number, things begin to get weird and weird as tracks progress. In the second "Suck & Eat you", the voice of Bullen sinks in the mix and gets more disperse and disperse as the music evolves into something that could only be called a mixture between (note) industrial, metal, dub, and dark experimental ambient. Meandering ultra distorted guitars (courtesy of Mr Broadrick) crawl more and more into the songs as the third cut "Hit" begins in a unfashionable way speedily treading its way into the speakers in the same way as it stops and gets the sunken vocals again.
From then on, the rest of the recording is overwhelmed by agonizing voices that come from nowhere, endless freak outs from Broadrick guitar and Harris punishing drums (with the occasional electronic effects as in the most "normal" song of the record, the single "Lick Forever Dog"). Indecipherable lyrics, slowliness and an impending sense of doom play the lead in this strange and experimental effort as the apropiately titled "Thoughts of escape" where the weirdest of all sounds (seemingly a deformed bass) opens the song as a door while voices cry for liberation while guitar and bass asfixiate everything in sight.
Curiously the last couple of tracks "Orgy of Holiness" and "Still Life", show the tendencies of other projects led by Harris (like the dark ambient of Lull), while they take control of the final memonts like somewhat the calm after the storm. Finally songs like "On ice" (its remix nearly a house number) demostrate a clear effort to unveil his electronic tendencies with tribal drums and hypnotic rhythms surrounding the music.
This inauguration of a critically praised and virtually ignored career would be cleansed and purged in the following years by Harris as he took control over the Scorn Project and turned it into one of the most extremely experimental Dub & Bass isolationist bands? of all time, pioneering everything in the underground electronic experimental music.
Weird that the three partcipants of this first Scorn record are the same that appear on the credits of the first side of Napalm Death Classic "Scum""