Thursday, September 13, 2007

Scorn- Vae Solis cover explained.

Question: Scorn\'s \"Vae Solis\" is one of the most masterful pieces of intense industrial music ever placed onto plastic. It\'s unique blend of dub, industrial and metal-driven riffs ala Godflesh (Justin Broadrick did play on the CD of course!) yet it\'s still such a mystery to me.

I tried asking Mick Harris himself online about lyrics for the CD but he didn\'t have any. Also, I always wondered what the album title \"Vae Solis\" means, or what exactly is it? Also, what is that on the album cover?

Great CD, but such a mysterious album. From:

Answer:Yeah Scorn's debut Vae Solis is a terrific album, which stands repeated listens even 15 years later, but i think it is merely a hint of the greatness which was soon to come from the duo of Mick Harris and Nik Bullen on 1994's Evanescence album., which is revolutionary. As for the lyrics, Nik used to carry round a small pocket notebook everywhere with him and was constantly writing new ideas/lyrics etc into it..this formed the basis of many of the themes in his works.The cover of Vae Solis (which i think strictly means 'Woeful Sun' in latin- or Black Sun more likely) is a collage of 2 medical photographs superimposed. One photo is an open throat, probably diseased, the other is a cancerous cell, taken with microscope, if memory serves.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Many years ago I asked my Greek professor at University about the album title and she translated it as "Alas, the Sun", so that's another take on the name.
-gunsan

Unknown said...

Well, it's not really grammatical. So, it's difficult to say exactly what it's supposed to mean. "alas, the sun", or "woe to the sun", should be "vae soli". "Solis" is possessive, so it could be saying "the sun's woe", but that's not really grammatical, either.

Kingu's Blood said...

"Vae Solis" is a Latin phrase that means "Woe to the lonesome".

Unknown said...

What was the picture of on the album cover, we thought a heart ventricle or larynx etc. Does anyone know???