Scorn
Vae Solis

Mick Harris, Nick Bullen, Justin Broaderick: three names, a guarantee.

With this piece from '92, the legendary trio reunites, who, under the monicker Napalm Death, released that bolt from the blue, "Scum," a fundamental work not only for setting new standards in the conception of extreme music but also for influencing, contaminating, and increasing the expressive range of far nobler genres like free jazz and avant-garde (does the name John Zorn ring a bell?). Though light-years away from the uncontrolled fury fragments that characterized that masterpiece of '87, the sounds of this "Vae Solis" carry the same antagonist spirit, the same intransigence, the same underlying pessimism. Here, however, the compositions expand, taking on a more mediated and reflective form, the grind component softens into a slow lava flow of disturbing and apocalyptic sounds, so much so that the sound of this new creature could be described as a towering structure on the brink of collapse or an old disused factory, where the heaviest and gloomiest industrial shakes hands with the darkest ambient. A place where Harris and company not only manage to reinterpret in an original and personal way the lessons imparted in the previous decade by Killing Joke, Ministry, and Swans, but succeed in taking the arguments of these masters of obsession to the extreme consequences, forging a new, sick, heavy, psychedelic sound.

In its 75 minutes of duration, "Vae Solis" is a genuine journey through the cold of machines, the stench of rust, the screech of scrap metal, an inhuman itinerary dominated by desolation, alienation, and despair. Total absence of hope: this is somewhat the feeling that accompanies us on this incredible descent into hell, nothing but a metaphor for the reality that surrounds us. In fact, it wouldn't be inappropriate to compare these sounds to the atmosphere of George Orwell's literary masterpiece "1984", of which this album could be the ideal soundtrack. In the magmatic progression of these terrible sounds and reflections (never has the pun "heavy" and "thoughtful" been more apt) one can recognize the three souls that compose the project. There is the experimental and meditative soul of Harris, who, having shed the furious drummer guise of Napalm Death (now bogged down in clichés that the group itself invented a few years earlier), though not completely abandoning his instrument, decides to look ahead and explore the shores of electronics, diving headfirst into the world of synths, samplers, and drum machines. Then there is the sick and dark soul of Bullen, co-author with Harris of lyrics and music (remember that the Scorn project is released in the name of the two, Broaderick appears only as a guest), who contributes his vitriolic throat and distorted bass. His voice, affected and reverberated by a thousand different effects, twists and reiterates in whirlwinds of despair and nihilism: whether it's growl or clean singing, the effect is annihilating. The hypnotic pulse of his bass is instead the backbone of the sound, both where the rhythms become sustained and the guitars abrasive, and where the sound is more sparse, bordering on dub and trip-hop. Finally, there is the metallic soul of Broadrick, here as a guest, lending the dirty and pasty sound of his Godflesh to the two ex-comrades: what can I say, in my opinion, he's the true poet of the modern era, with his hefty riffing from ultra-low frequencies, whether he's venturing into hardcore outbursts or indulging in endless psychedelic drifts, he's capable of gifting essays of genuine post-industrial existentialism. The result? Lava flows of electricity, slow rivers of feedback, a scorching magma of obsessive metal that fills all the interstices and voids left behind by the sparse drum beats and the clatter of the bass. Moments more pulled (where Harris' excellent drumming stands out again), others slower, bordering on the most claustrophobic doom or drones music (move over Sunn 0)))!). Disturbing noises, sampled voices, minimal electronic inserts, ambient openings of great unease: all elements that compose a nightmare wherein it's impossible to glimpse an escape.

It's curious, in this regard, to note how this journey, engaging body, mind, and heart, is actually oriented towards nothingness, towards total dehumanization; how, through a cynically and perversely calculated mechanism, the human element is progressively and programmatically mutilated and subtracted from the sound body of our ones: in this way, the aggression and anger of the first tracks slowly dissipate from track to track, the sound becomes progressively more and more expansive, psychedelic, enveloping; machines slowly take over: the drums give way to the drum machine, the voice to samples, and the guitar to synths, until reaching the "nothing" of the concluding triptych, as if symbolically transitioning from the side of the perpetrator to that of the victim, in a sadomasochistic game where there is no exchange, communication, but only the act of violating and being violated (is this perhaps to what an economic system based on personal selfishness and extreme competition has brought us?). And so, when one finally reaches the dark-ambient catharsis of the concluding "Still Life," it seems impossible that it all began with the frontal assault of the opener "Spasm" (not even three minutes of extreme post-grind violence). Perhaps the ringing in our ears reminds us of it, subjected to all kinds of torture, from the sustained rhythms and dirty sounds of "Walls of my Heart" and "Lick Forever Dog" to the unbearable cacophony of the claustrophobic and disturbing doom of "Thoughts of Escape." An undoubtedly exhausting, difficult listen, where, however, one also encounters moments, so to speak, more "light," like the catchy "On Ice," a hybrid between Killing Joke and Depeche Mode, the rock-oriented "Heavy Blood" and the almost dub "Scum after Death," which, if needed, emphasize our one's versatility and open-mindedness.

An absolute masterpiece that knows how to transcend the clichés of its scene and rise to the status of "existential music," a music that reflects and makes one reflect, that knows how to describe the moods of a society alienated and dominated by machines and where there is no longer room for man. A proposition that still retains an undeniable charm for its freshness and intransigence (and that continues to frighten, despite the boundaries of extreme having meanwhile been further pushed forward). Here, more than anywhere else, it's justified to use the label "post," whatever you want to mean by it.