Mick Harris, former Napalm Death drummer, and the name behind a thousand side projects has been producing grim, heavy, foundation shaking bass experiments as Scorn since the early 90s. Those early albums on Earache were devastatingly effective combinations of bass and drone and prefaced much of the darkest trip hop and illbient of the mid 90s. Also experimenting with drum & bass as Quoit, it should be no surprise that on this new album, the first in quite a while, should be tinged with the influences of dubstep.
However, Stealth, on Berlin’s Ad Noiseam label, is heavy industrial dubstep. Like his other albums as Scorn it is suitably oppressive with all propulsive motion suffocated. Slowed down mentasm stabs rip like tears in speaker fabric, the bottom end thickens the air into molasses, and it almost seems nonsensical to suggest that anyone would/could dance to this (although I’m yet to roadtest this myself). As such Stealth, whilst full of intensity, the slow motion vibe sometimes traps the album in the atmospheres of the past – the inertia of mid 90s trip hop (much in the way Skream’s debut on Tempa felt trapped by its digidub influences).
Still, Stealth might bring some oldtime Scorn fans into the world of dubstep, and it will certainly appeal to those who have enjoyed the darker, crunchier borderline dubstep producers like Boxcutter, Vex’d and Milanese.
*
