For the better part of two decades, The Body has been putting out a steady stream of material that blurred the lines between metal, industrial, and other electronic genres while keeping an appropriately apocalyptic tone. Their earliest material skewed much closer to sludge, doom, and drone with plenty of unexpected elements and Chip King’s recognizable high-pitched shrieks, but by the time 2014’s I Shall Die Here came out things had already transformed significantly. Since then the duo has released material at a rapid pace, sometimes by themselves and other times with a slew of collaborators, but the music has always been different in style and approach. In 2024 they’ve now released two full lengths, a collaboration with Dis Fig back in February that occupied an intriguing space between terrifying and hypnotic, and they end the year with The Crying Out Of Things. This latest effort feels like a natural summation of their earlier and more recent approaches, but still pushes things into different territory and has plenty of harrowing and surprisingly catchy moments that will keep you coming back.
One element that’s worked well for recent The Body albums is conciseness, and The Crying Out Of Things once again showcases that the group can head in a lot of different directions without stretching them too far. Opener “Last Things” spends its first couple of minutes focused on rhythm, as the drums keep a steady, booming pulse that echo out of your speakers with a darker tone. This leads into a wall of noisier instrumentals that bring a sense of dread and despair with haunting melodies and layers of distortion. None of these elements are necessarily new for The Body, but when the trumpet suddenly breaks through the wall of sound around the three-minute mark it gives an even more twisted and eerie slant to the material that draws you further in. From there the album covers quite a bit of ground, sometimes taking rhythms that have more of a hip-hop or drum ’n bass feel and transforming them into a more abrasive and industrial sound while other times opting for full-on noise driven power electronics. For each element that feels familiar compared to past releases from The Body, there are enough nuances that find the songwriting continuing to expand outwards and fuse all of these seemingly different styles into one cohesive and grimy sound. It still feels weird to call any album that’s this bleak and ear piercing at points “catchy”, but there are sections of “Removal”, “A Premonition”, and “End of Line” that will not only stick with you but have you bobbing your head along despite the more sinister tones coming from the guitars and electronics. The final two tracks in particular weave together wonderfully and represent one of the most seamless fusion of The Body’s earlier elements with their current electronic approach. “The Building” opts for sparser electronics that are a bit looser in form but still get under your skin, while “All Worries” stretches outwards with droning guitars that build up to some stunning apocalyptic peaks. It isn’t all perfect, as “Less Meaning” is a bit repetitive in its singular focus on bludgeoning the listener with drums and pulsating electronics, but there’s so much that works here that I found myself hitting the repeat button frequently.
With how long The Body has been around for, you should have a good idea at this point whether Chip King’s shrill screaming approach aligns with your musical tastes or not. This has been one of the defining elements of the group’s material no matter where they’ve gone on the instrumental side, as the ear-piercing nature of his screams and shrieks cut through your speakers in ways that are likely to send chills down your spine. Sometimes this makes it seem like the vocal approach is pretty one-dimensional, but as with other albumsin The Body’s discography The Crying Out Of Things utilizes a few different pitches and adds in samples and guests to shake things up. King’s vocals also seem to flow in and out of the background depending on the song, with “Removal” being a great example. On this track there’s an echoes to the screams that makes them feel like they’re dissipating into the instrumentation, and other distorted spoken word takes their place briefly until a completely different and equally distorted scream comes bursting in. Moments like this blur the lines between the more distorted and disturbing vocals of power electronics and harshness of metal, and they work to the group’s advantage. Things don’t always skew abrasive though, and when “The Building” brings back Dis Fig for a guest spot towards the end the performance is as warm and inviting as it is slightly unnerving.
Like a lot of groups that have broad discographies, not every release from The Body has fully clicked with me. But this latest effort breaks things down to the essence of the duo’s noisy and accessible writing styles, resulting in songs that hook you with big, booming beats and darker melodies but have more discover beneath the surface. I can’t think of too many other bands out there that have been able to bring in rhythms that are closer to drum ‘n bass and hip hop and weave them into this type of industrial, power electronics, and droning metal, and even after this many years The Body clearly still has plenty of ground to cover. The Crying Out Of Things is available from Thrill Jockey Records.
-Review by Chris Dahlberg