Have you ever crashed your car? I have, several times as a teenager. When I try to remember the moment of impact from any of those incidents — when I sideswiped a truck, or when I hit the brakes but still rear-ended a sedan on the highway — all I can recall is the blankness of my mind at the point of collision. I am reminded of this when I hear “Less Meaning” by the Body, a syncopated song that embodies the way disaster can induce the feeling of going in-and-out of consciousness.
“Less Meaning” is only one blip of madness on The Crying Out Of Things, the new album by the experimental duo consisting of guitarist/vocalist Chip King and electronics/percussionist Lee Buford. It feels like no coincidence that the record arrives the week we turn our clocks back so darkness falls earlier; autumn is the perfect time to unveil heavy music, as proved by noise-rock crew Chat Pile last month with the bleak masterpiece Cool World, on which sinister textures ooze and grow like mold. On the other hand, The Crying Out Of Things communicates malice with strictly explosive, in-your-face pandemonium, leaving little breathing room.
The Crying Out Of Things is made up of nine tracks, but it’s impossible when listening to tell when one song ends and another begins. The music flows at its own accord. The murky opener “Last Things” unfolds anxiously with drumrolls, tambourine, and a voice distorted into villainous anonymity, leaving the words completely obfuscated, before erupting into a heavy crescendo with deafening guitars and King’s shouts, which are thoroughly guttural to the point of being inhuman; they ring through the songs like the sirens of ambulances. On the enormous “Careless And Worn,” horns by Dan Blacksburg cut through the blaring clamor with elegant eeriness, portraying a kind of ancient anguish and giving the music the sense of a funeral march.
Chat Pile’s brand of seething aggression resonates, capturing the way pain and grief can be invisible forces creeping up on you, masterfully discreet until they have you by the throat. Conversely, the aptly titled The Crying Out Of Things is a rage ritual, embodying the more visceral side of agony. The Body explore the extents of extremity, such as on the aforementioned “Less Meaning.” The wall of thundering commotion ricocheting against split seconds of silence is nauseating, and King howling with animalistic abandon adds to the disorientation. In a press release, the band calls their approach “instinctual, maximalist.” All of the songs are coated in a layer of reverb that smolders like embers that refuse to go out.
As always, the Body incorporate elements of hip-hop in a satisfyingly seamless fashion, pulsating on the airy interlude “The Citadel Unconquered” and the penultimate track “The Building,” the latter of which serves as a reprieve before the Joy Divison-esque finale “All Worries.” It’s not easy to end an album like The Crying Out Of Things, where there are countless climaxes and the feeling of finality is woven in since the beginning. “All Worries,” though, is a true dirge; it doesn’t get nearly as loud as the other songs, and instead uses a menacing stillness to its advantage. The volcanic fuzz that drenches all its predecessors is absent, or at least more subtle, offering an exposed, naked feeling.
The Body are often engaging in collaborative records — with Dis Fig, OAA, BIG|BRAVE, Uniform, and more — but The Crying Out Of Things showcases what an unrelenting force the band can be on their own. The sparse words in the accompanying lyric booklet paint pictures of ruin, war, despair, and ache, though they leave King’s lips too disfigured and deformed too make out. But the words aren’t necessary; horror overflows from The Crying Out Of Everything like vomit spewing from a mouth, portraying the insufficiency of words in the midst of such atrociousness.
The Crying Out Of Things is out 11/8 on Thrill Jockey.
Other albums of note out this week:
• Primal Scream’s Come Ahead
• FERG’s Darold
• Claire Rousay’s The Bloody Lady
• Babytron’s Tronicles
• The Slaps’ Mudglimmer
• Ab-Soul’s Soul Burger
• The compilation Like Someone I Know: A Celebration Of Margo Guryan
• Speakers Corner Quartet’s Mr Loverman score
• Tomorrow x Together’s The Star Chapter: SANCTUARY
• Capitol’s Sounds Like A Place
• Our Girl’s The Good Kind
• Earthburner’s Permanent Dawn
• BoyWithUke’s Burnout
• Chimers’ Through Today
• Klone’s The Unseen
• State Champs’ State Champs
• The Bad Plus’ Complex Emotions
• Banananagun’s Why Is The Colour Of The Sky?
• Thank’s I Have A Physical Body That Can Be Harmed
• Leifur James’ Magic Seeds
• Rafael Anton Irisarri’s FAÇADISMS
• Soft As Snow’s Metal.wet
• GLOK & Timothy Clerkin’s Alliance
• Merope’s Vėjula
• piglet’s for frank forever
• Yoo Doo Right’s From The Heights Of Our Pastureland
• Charley Crockett’s Lonesome Drifter
• Spyro Gyra’s Jubilee
• Florian Christl’s Donau
• Freak Slug’s I Blow Out Big Candles
• Longheads’ Layers Of Wax
• We Are Wolves’ NADA
• The Mommyheads’ One Eyed Band
• Melike Şahin’s AKKOR
• James Tonic’s Stuck In LA
• Sarah Davachi & Dicky Bahto’s Music For A Bellowing Room
• LEWISSPYBEY’s LEWISSPYBEY
• Aziya’s BAMBI
• King Stingray’s For The Dreams
• Talibando’s Art Of War
• Strangerfamiliar’s La Pena
• Minho’s Call Back
• Merope’s Vėjula
• Gabby Barrett’s Carols And Candlelight
• Count Zero’s Thought So
• The Orb’s Orboretum: The Orb Collection
• Tsunami’s Loud Is As box set
• The Tragically Hip’s Up To Here commemorative box set
• Miles Davis’ Miles In France – Miles Davis Quintet 1963/64: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8
• HOMESHAKE’s Horsie (Deluxe)
• Refused’s The Shape Of Punk To Come (25th Anniversary Deluxe Reissue) & The Shape Of Punk To Come Obliterated tribute album
• The Charlatans’ Up To Our Hips 30th anniversary reissue
• The Ladybug Transistor’s The Albemarle Sound (25th Anniversary Deluxe Reissue)
• Sussan Deyhim & Richard Horowitz’s The Invisible Road: Original Recordings, 1985-1990
• Umarells’ One More Day EP
• Man/Woman/Chainsaw’s Eazy Peazy EP
• Girl Scout’s Headache EP
• Olivia Belli’s Intercosmia Vol. 1 EP
• Nectar Woode’s Head Above Water EP
• Moody Joody’s Dream Girl EP
• honestav’s hara-kiri EP
• Haywire’s For Better Or For Worse EP
• Morgan Harper-Jones’ Journal Versions EP
• Robin Guthrie’s Astoria EP
• Yatta Bandz’s Acrylic EP
• Venus Twins’ /\/\/\/\/ (Pronounced Stitching) EP
