Since the dawn of Rock-n-Roll music, many have said it would fade away. Quite prevalently spoken of over the last two decades, many have claimed Rock-n-Roll is dead, and if you hear it enough, you may start to believe it. However, if you look past what big record labels are promoting and peel back the onion, you will see Rock-n-Roll is alive and well with bands like Scorpion Child.
With roots buried nearly twenty years into the earth, Scorpion Child is a Heavy Rock band out of Austin, Texas, with a very interesting, multi-dimensional history. To start out with, it was initially an acoustic duo of Vocalist Aryn Jonathan Black and Guitarist Asa Savage. Growing into a full-fledged band, they signed on with Nuclear Blast Records and recorded two albums (2013’s self-titled and 2016’s Acid Roulette) with Grammy-nominated Producer Chris “Frenchie” Smith.
Solid, impressive Rock records, both respectfully reached peak positions on the Billboard Heatseeker charts, but by mid-2017, Scorpion Child was at a bit of a crossroads. To start with, Drummer Jon Rice (who had spent 2014 into 2017 with the band) opted to leave and join Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats. Next, Bassist Alec Pardon and Keyboardist AJ Vincent bowed out, leaving Black with some tough decisions. Should he pack it up or keep moving forward? In too deep with the band he steered for over a decade at this point, he reconnected with his old friend Asa Savage (who moved onto other projects in 2010) in 2018 to start a new chapter in Scorpion Child’s story.
With the two key members at the forefront, they are now joined by Garth D. Condit on bass, Adrian Arostone on lead guitar, and Ryan Henderson rounding out the package on drums. Surviving a period where there were many moving parts and tons of uncertainty, the dust settled with a brand new Scorpion Child album emerging called I Saw the End as It Passed Right Through Me.
A powerful title for a record, and one which could have many meanings, it arrives on February 14, 2025, through Noize in the Attic Records. At this stage, nearly ten years after Acid Roulette, it is easy to imagine that some may have forgotten who and what Scorpion Child is. The sad result of inactivity for an extensive period of time is that Scorpion Child’s return should not fall by the wayside. To start with, they may not sound exactly as you recall. As mentioned, Scorpion Child has always been a band on big guitar riffs and a Classic Rock/ Heavy Metal influence, but it seems they are determined to put the sound in a very different direction with I Saw the End as It Passed Right Through Me.
Proving this immediately with the album’s lead single, “Outliers,” which arrived back in September of 2024, you could hear a darker sound that united Heavy Rock along with some of the ‘80s best Post-Punk and Gothic Rock styles. It is a really cool combination that brings to mind The Mission UK and The Sisters of Mercy, joined up with heavier bands like The Cult or Killing Joke. With that said, the songs presented on Scorpion Child’s I Saw the End as It Passed Right Through Me are authentic, passionate, and far from a derivative of the past.
Joined by other pre-album release singles like the blistering “Be the Snake,” it is safe to say you are in for something special with Scorpion Child’s resurrection. Altogether, the album has an absolutely fantastic tone in terms of the vocals delivered by Black matched with the guitars by Savage and Arostone, which are thick with grooves, haunting, and melodic at the same time. Eight tracks in all, some absolutely outstanding moments have to include “See The Shine,” “The Starker” matched with a perfect bassline, and “Godskin” with a dazzling mix of different elements.
Overall, it seems like Scorpion Child was hell-bent on creating a collection of perfectly intriguing and epic songs, all in the same breath. It sounds fresh and inspired and, hopefully, will be the spark that ignites a new flame of interest in the band. Highly recommended for fans of dark melodic Heavy Rock, Cryptic Rock gives Scorpion Child’s Child’s I Saw the End as It Passed Right Through Me 4.5 out of 5 stars.
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