What the fuck is Scorpion Milk? Mat McNerney has dealt a lot with death and milk throughout his musical career, launching a dynamic duo of Apocalyptic Post-Punk with first Beastmilk (Seinfeld voice “What’s the deal with milk?”) and then Grave Pleasures. The formula of songs that feel like a panicked fever dream-turned-end-of-the-world-party was sharpened with each subsequent release, though McNerney has outdone himself with his debut solo release. Slime of the Times sounds broader and more developed than his previously stellar releases; the answer to how to top greatness is to dig deeper (I’m sorry for those of you with a dirty mind). Layers of anarcho-punk, thrash, and doom metal only augment the clear blast McNerny is having here. That broader perspective allows the pervasive paranoia to feel fresh throughout. Started because he felt like he had to go it alone for once, Scorpion Milk is vastly improved because McNerney ran free.
“Despite the name similarities I do see this as a new thing,” he says, “with its own sound and style. There’s a story continuation of course, but it’s a different breed of animal too. Scorpion Milk is poison basically. It’s less playful name-wise than the other two bands – it means business! Scorpion Milk is about me doing what I always wanted to do with my songwriting and the sound and style of those other bands. I went back to what I was feeling when I started Beastmilk, and I thought about where it could have gone if I hadn’t messed around with the other people in those bands. Music is always about chemistry, reaction and interaction. I liked the idea of what things would sound like and be like if I had always just followed my own intuition: thinking about the inspirations and what was missing, where else things could have gone. Because nothing is ever perfect and everything can be reimagined or reworked, and ultimately chemistry is finite, so I think it’s good to keep changing the formula.”
Leaning into his continued Apocalyptic Post-Punk world, Scorpion Milk is the murkiest reality yet, though it’s not hard to see why when you look around you. How did that play out, thematically? It’s a anarcho-punk party at the end of the world, a rallying cry without easy answers:
“I wanted to confront the feeling that we’re living at the end of something, we’re at the bottom of the barrel and the sludge is thick and oozing. Civilisation, truth, reality, take your pick, it’s all gone to shit. The slime is sticky and bogs us down. This album speaks from inside that collapse, not as a prophet, but as someone crawling through the ooze. It’s about what it means to survive mentally, emotionally, spiritually, when the world is wired for despair. You have to become the darkness to know how to overcome it. That’s the idea of the name too. It’s poison but it also nourishes. That’s the contradiction in the music. It’s down and dark, but it’s also rhythmic and upbeat. Dancing with clenched teeth. I’m not offering answers, just rhythm and resistance.”
Slime of the Times is out Friday, and you can preorder it from Peaceville Records. Follow Scorpion Milk on Facebook and Instagram for future updates.
Photo Credit: Andy Ford
