The Body/Full of Hell - One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache (2016) / 87%

"THAT'S NOT EVEN MUSIC, MAN!"

Two of today’s most belligerent forces of the underground got together to create this uneasy record. The young quartet from Maryland, Full of Hell, aren't afraid of experimenting and going all in when noise is concerned (see their collaboration with Merzbow) and Lee and Chip from The Body, two veterans of the "we'll do whatever the fuck we want" music academy, gave them the chance to go all in.

Throughout the ten songs, we're served abrasive and explosive music with a wide array of influences. Despite the numerous sounds of "One Day...", it's a coherent record with an overarching theme; nihilism... or a parody of nihilism. The Body are not to be taken too seriously most of the time and from what I've heard, their lyrical approach is based on some very dark humor.

The dirges found here are not letting go of your neck and heart for a bit more than forty minutes. The screeching vocals of Chip King (best name) and the deeper approach of Dylan Walker are perfect voices if you want to invoke total despair. The track "World Of Hope And No Pain" is a short summary of the vocal duality and it hits hard. The misery and pain found on those songs is personal but also universal, it speaks of suicide, depression but in a way devoid of emotional discharge and cheesiness. It's often more self-loathing than pure nihilism, in fact.

One of the highlights for me are the drums. At times, both a drum machine and a real drum are playing at the same time (such as on "Bottled Urn") and it creates an interesting dichotomy of styles and aggression. Sometimes it feels like The Body are using the technical skills of Full of Hell to provide an expansive yet super tight musicianship for their relatively simple but insane compositions. If it wasn't mad enough, the inclusion of short samples of neurotic TV extracts adds another dimension to the whole thing. The last track "Abel" ends with an extended one and it's just creepy. Its brother song "Cain" almost sounds like if Radiohead was actually dangerous instead of catering to boring college kids.

The ability of creating such a wall of sound with so many elements comes from their skill in using a multipurpose blender. From industrial sludge metal, slow powerviolence, striking grindcore to brooding ambient, harsh noise and even some martial black metal, the collaboration just unleashes its venom track after track. Sure, it's not quite accessible and some people would say it's not really "musical" but it's an overwhelmingly great album and it succeeds at all its goals. It's making you feel like shit but at the same time, you enjoy it.