SCORN

mjeanes

Ok, I admit, this album took me a long time to get into. As I excitedly pushed "play" on my CD player the day I opened the jewel case, I was presented with the dreamy hypnotic minimalistic beats of Scorn, but with an overtone of anger and frustration within. This ingredient in the Scorn library was admittedly my least favorite for a long time, until I got to know it... Once you get that far, there's some excellent beats in here with an unusual upbeat aspect. This album has an "in-your-face" feel that makes it quite unlike it's brothers. This is the last album with Earache Records before the change to Invisible Records.

Fleshpile

This is the first Scorn recording I've ever heard, and it's pretty strange. I didn't like it very much until I listened to it while trying to fall asleep. Playing this CD in the dark is absolutely scary. I started listening to it more because that was the first time I'd ever been frightened by an audio recording. Hmmm... anyway, this is very minimalistic with some _deep_ bass. There are 2 or 3 tracks I still don't like too much because of annoying background sounds (like whining, etc.), but there are also a good bunch of tracks with some great breaks in them. Track 3, The Next Days, has an especially good beat in it. There are also some very strange vocal samples scattered about (although the "Logghi Barogghi" one is somewhat amusing :-)  The last track, Go, is pretty strange too; it seems to be a sampled fight with people screaming in some strange language. Give this CD a chance if you don't like it at first, it's pretty good overall.

Matt Feusner

The conversion of Scorn from a duo to a solo effort wasn't without ill effects and this, the final Earache release from the group, demonstrates this while at the same time maintaining appeal. It would be a bit much to say that Scorn stopped functioning without Nick Bullen, but while Mick Harris is perfectly capable of creating music on his own, the switch to nothing but instrumental soundscapes ultimately creates a bit of a dry listen. Sonically, though, Harris obsessively works his specific range with often brutally excellent effects. The intertwining of relentless rhythm, dub echo, deep bass, and the air of looming catastrophe via drones and reverb pulses darkly throughout as variations on a compelling theme. A song like "Do the Geek" — one of the more unlikely dance crazes in a while — features basslines whirring through the speakers like attack helicopters, an occasional vocal snippet providing a sole, familiar anchor. Other songs have similar hooks-that-aren't: the unsettling recurrent whines on "Spongie" almost sounds like a dying animal caught in a loop and the odd tweets and processed drums on "Weakener." The subtle but clearly present variety in the beats themselves — it's not just one drum machine used over again, there's a definite feel and character to each core pattern at the heart of each song. That said, there is still a pretty steady pace throughout — the only time things really pick up is the brief blast of jungle-touched work on the title song, which almost seems like it's meant to be a joke more than anything else.

3 stars out of 5

Ned Raggett (courtesy of the All Music Guide website)