SCORN didn’t start as a “new band” plan. It started as a collaboration for a future Dregs record, then slipped the leash and became its own thing: a crossover project built around tight releases and a touring calendar that doesn’t wait for perfect conditions. The core is a duo – Eli Youth (Disavow) and Dom Delicious (Dregs) – with a simple premise: push past what their former lanes demanded, write fast and hard, then take it on the road until the practical world taps them on the shoulder.
It feels like war prep – those first riffs hit and it’s like pulling on armor, half-fired up, half-aware something ugly is coming; battle-ready crossover hardcore in the most literal sense, hit play and you’ll know immediately whether you’re ready for it or not.
Their debut EP, “Cruel World,” is out now (released January 9) as a joint cassette release through Negative Aggression (SE) and No Heroes Records (DE). Six tracks, positioned as a damn hard first statement: raw thrash energy welded to heavy hardcore, with a lyrical focus that doesn’t hide behind metaphors when the subject is already ugly.
Early 2025 was studio time. July brought a 3-track promo, and not long after that came proof-of-life in the only currency that matters in this kind of music: shows. A rapid 5-country run followed, then a weekender alongside German hardcore act Stray Dogs. On December 10, SCORN were set to support Grove Street (UK) and Doomsday (US) in Vienna. The next step is already locked: a tour starting January 13 with Swedish Obstruktion.
If the sound sits in the crossover pocket, the mindset is less nostalgia and more vacancy-sign-on-the-door. Eli pictures it as a gap in mainland Europe — not a grand manifesto, more like a raised eyebrow and an open invite to disagree: crossover thrash “is lacking a bit in comparison to other sounds in hardcore Europe’s local scenes,” with the caveat that the bands might exist and just be flying under his radar: “I really want to be proven wrong here – everyone is free to shame me and share all the bands!”
He points to the UK having a clearer current thread – Pest Control, Overpower, Grove Street, Infinite Wisdom — while naming a smaller set on the mainland: Italian Silver and Rough Touch, Swedish Lowest Creature. Then he draws a line around what he’s hearing elsewhere: Existence (SE), Foreseen (FI), Cold Decay (FR), Killing Frost (FI) leaning more death metal-adjacent, “the heavier kind.” No dismissal in that, just a preference for more room in the middle: “I absolutely love that stuff, but still feel like there is plenty of space in the hardcore scene for new crossover bands!”
That “space” is where “Cruel World” sits. The press note frames the EP as a instinctual look at modern existence: disillusionment, environmental collapse, mass manipulation, and the question of how to find individual meaning while everything around you feels designed to numb you. It’s not dressed up as hope, but it isn’t written like defeat either – more like standing still long enough to admit what’s actually happening.
Eli goes straight for the source: “watching the world unravel sounds like a good summary.” The lens he describes isn’t vague doomscrolling; it’s a shift in how you read daily life once you stop treating it as neutral. “At some point in our lives we became class conscious and since then kept seeing the cracks in the walls.” From there, the lyric themes widen out without changing tone: “discrimination, division, isolation and financial hardship” on a regional and national level, then “Imperialism, oppression and war” on the global stage.
“Cruel World” feels like clarity before strategy – “purposefully presented as an enlightenment rather than call to action,” an “encouragement to see through illusion and witness the actual horrors that roam.” The political edge is explicit and specific: “We believe that there is so much to do to combat capitalism and injustice, but that the first step is to actually see and try to understand what is happening and why – and not to simply follow others blindly in believing that you chose the ‘right team’.” It’s a line that fits the music’s pace: not a speech, more like a shove.
There’s also a personnel shift baked into the record’s identity. Switching Eli into vocals could read like a reinvention, but the writing process stayed largely intact because the decision came late: “As we were writing all the music before considering me on vocals (we still had the vocal vibe similar to Dregs in mind) our eventual decision to give me a chance didn’t have too much effect on the songwriting process.” The bigger struggle was honesty — finding a performance that didn’t feel like costume: “It was instead difficult for us to find a vocal performance that felt honest and appropriate for the music, but in the end I think we found something that sounds very genuine.”
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The lyrics, too, weren’t improvised as an afterthought. The themes and style were imagined alongside the music, but the act of writing them down was its own jump: “it was again a completely new experience to actually put everything into words.” And the frontperson role lands with both appetite and nerves: “Taking on the role as a frontperson is exciting but also really frightening… It’s a lot of pressure when I’m both inexperienced and a perfectionist!” The gratitude is personal and practical: “I am very grateful that Dom is so supportive and trusting in me, giving me a chance to do something I’ve wanted to do for a very very long time. We’re really trying to push each other to evolve as musicians!”
The touring talk in SCORN’s bio isn’t romanticized as chaos-for-chaos’s-sake. It’s blunt about the math. The ideal is clear: “If we could choose, we’d be out for a big part of the year.. Whether this be in Europe or travelling around the globe. All we want to do is create and play music!” Then the reality check: “The biggest factor standing in the way is financial – touring is obviously more of a rough holiday than a way to make money, but bills still need to be paid back home.” There’s another constraint too: finding people who can match the pace — “needing bandmembers who too have the drive and availability to commit to such intensity.” Until that’s solved, the approach is shorter tours, more often, and taking what comes: “we try to plan in shorter tours but continuously – and making sure to do everything we can to accept show offers!”
That ties into how SCORN operate live right now: a duo at the center, with friends filling in onstage. It’s described as necessity, not aesthetic – the long-term goal is stability, but the priority is momentum. “Ideally we would have permanent members for this project, but sharing our vision and having the ability to commit is obviously not for everyone – so it is out of necessity that friends are filling in.” Even with permanent members, the rule remains: “the project comes first, so someone not being available should not stop SCORN from playing.”
The flexibility is almost a policy: “If we’ve got no bassplayer for tour but two guitarists – then we would change the lineup and perform with one guitar and the other person play bass. If Eli’s voice would be gone, then he’d be able to jump on guitar/bass and leave the vocals to someone else.” It’s not posturing; it’s contingency planning in plain language: “We’ll adapt to whatever situation we find ourselves in.” And there’s genuine affection for the current patchwork version: “we absolutely love having our friends play with us – it feels very special,” even if the aim is “eventually have one committed group.”
As a debut, “Cruel World” comes as a six-track entry point, a snapshot of two people building a vehicle that can move fast and keep moving. The press note namechecks reference points – Power Trip, Mindforce, Living In Fear, Forced Neglect, Lowest Creature, Doomsday – and you can hear why those are useful signposts: thrash speed, hardcore weight, riffs that want to sprint, and vocals that carry urgency without theatricality.
What sticks most is the record’s refusal to blur its subject matter into vague apocalypse décor. The collapse described here isn’t cinematic; it’s social, environmental, and psychological – the kind you recognize in daily life once you stop treating it as background noise. That stance fits the project’s overall posture: release, play, repeat — and don’t pretend the world is fine just because the set went well.
