vote
7.5
- Band:
Scorpion Milk - Duration: 00:36:01
- Available since: 19/09/2025
- Label:
-
Peaceville
Streaming not yet available
Mat McNerney's multifacetedness is proverbial and has conducted it over the years in many points of extreme metal, preferably of eccentric and experimental imprint, bringing it later over the years to approach another context, that of the post-punk/dark rock metallic Rock: a current that has become pervasive in today's metal, extreme and not, of which the artist of English origin and for many years and for many years. Moving to Finland is one of the main managers.
At a distance of over ten years we can say that its beastmilk with “climax” have published one of the most important records of their historical period, spreading a lasting influence on the metal that came later, more or less direct way. And if in terms of true 'success' the Beastmilk before and their subsequent incarnation, the grave pleasures, have gained relatively, remaining a creature all in all underground, having revitalized a certain sound and imaginary remains an indisputable merit.
In a vintage that has already seen him return to the market with the new, excellent, chapter signed by Hexvessel, “Nocturne”, McNerney reappears at the Izloar of autumn with a solo album, from whose moniker already we guess where we are going to parry. There is always the middle milk, in this case that of Scorpio, and the manifest idea of this “Slime of the Times” is precisely to resume the beloved post-punk veins, in a more dated perspective than that of the grave pleasures, building an ideal bridge between the work of seminal bands Ottantian (Killing Joke, The Sisters of Mercy) and that of recent realities, such as Health, Drab. Majesty, Molchat Doma.
For this solo debut McNerney made use of collaborators of a certain lost, such as Tor Sjödén of the Viagra Boys on drums, Nate Newton (converge, quarries in) on the bass, some fleeting apparitions of 'Big' Paul Ferguson of the Kelling Joke and Will Gould of Creeper at the main item for “She Wolf of London”. The album was entirely produced and recorded by McNerney at the Pine Hill Studio, in his Finland, then leaving the mixing to Wayne Adams in the Bear Bites Horse, while the mastering was carried out at the famous Abbey Studios.
The final result is directly descending of the idea of post-punk matured by the English singer over the years: music with a contagious, hypnotic and enveloping feeling, with a persuasive night charm, imbued with an underground anger, bitter, disillusioned, and an unhealthy desire for fun that tries to dissipate, or to pay homage, all this negativity.
Compared to the Beastmilk/Grave Pleasures' embodglications, the sound fabric knows more than vintage, with a lower metallic ardor on. There is no explosiveness of albums such as “Climax” and “Motherblood”, here and there the calmer and reflective cut of “plagueboys”, but we are still on a slightly different playing field. Of course, the imprint is that, the voice is too unmistakable, characteristic, to deceive itself, but also the way of developing music is immediately attributable to its author.
The sensations induced are gently eighty, daughters really of another ecosystem and the production in this sense to detach clearly with other albums recently produced in the metallic post-punk area. It is drier, sharp and thin, there is no search for the sound of sound at all costs, the right is clean and it has an unscathed consistency that could remember the sound of the rope secret, just to give a coeval reference.
While on a stylistic level we allow ourselves more than a digression, injecting a rude punk spirit in many situations, making an unstable disc “slime of the times” result, which on the one hand gives affable and easy to listen ideas, on the other it creates a disturbance, noise, a pinch of discomfort.
Wanting to find the imprint to the grave pleasures', this one comes out beautifully in the most unleashed episodes, the contagious and tarantolated dance ones on the edge of the precipice and here stands the flaming “She Wolf of London”. However, this is not the favorite path of the tracklist, which lives more often than hypnotic loops, angry vocal tears and a indole from restless low (“wall to wall”, “The will to live”); Or there is the ecstatic calm in observing the disaster all around, that of the first single “Another day, Another Abyss” or Title-Rack.
The question you are probably asking you from the first line of the review, is inevitably this: are we on the same levels as the Beastmilk and Grave Pleasures? Almost.
The disc works well as a whole and in individual episodes, also playing as something characteristic and not superimposable to other McNerney projects. Beautiful atmospheres evoked, effective songwriting and the toxic and decadent climate injected by these bitter sounds.
In our opinion, the peaks reached on other occasions are not: perhaps we feel the nostalgia of the apocalyptic explosiveness of “climax” and “Motherblood”, yet also the reasoned incended of the most recent “Plagueboys” possessed a pinch of additional magic compared to “Slime of the Times”.
However, this debut signed by Scorpion Milk is also good, with an artist of this stature we realize that we are particularly demanding, precisely for the high level to which he has accustomed us to his exits. To avoid misunderstandings, even if this album should soon become a formidable source of dependence, we would not be surprised at all …
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
