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The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer review




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Reviewer:
8.6

31 users:
6.94
Band: The Body
Album: I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer
Release date: May 2018


01. The Last Form Of Loving
02. Can Carry No Weight
03. Partly Alive
04. The West Has Failed
05. Nothing Stirs
06. Off Script
07. An Urn
08. Blessed, Alone
09. Sickly Heart Of Sand
10. Ten Times A Day, Every Day, A Stranger

For a band whose number of collaborations rivals their actual output, The Body still manage to captivate with their own material. Following up their self-described "gross pop" album, now there's a few more twists and tweaks to their experimentation with electronic sounds.

The Body has already built up their reputation both as crafters of some bleak and anxiety-inducing music and as redefiners of said sound. They've collaborated with the likes of Thou, Full Of Hell and Krieg, but you probably already know that. Their most interesting twist was twisting their usual sludge sound on Nobody Deserves Happiness, taking electronic sampling that made something that could pass as a hip-hop beat and convulsing it into something distorted and terrifying. Now we have an album whose title is inspired by a line from a famous suicide note, that of Virginia Woolf, that features contributions from Chrissy Wolpert of Assembly Of Light Choir, Ben Eberle of Sandworm, Kristin Hayter of Lingua Ignota, and almost 3rd member Chrissy Wolpert among others, and that has the promise of something that will bring the listeners to their lowest low.

While working with just about the same building blocks, I Have Fought Against It manages to sound a lot more cinematic, whether in the epic meaning of the word (like in "Partly Alive") or just generally like it could pass as a hypnotic soundtrack to a movie (ambiance-wise, not compositionally). There is very little actually metal on this record, being much closer to noise or death industrial or whatever Death Grips is. The samples are a bit different this time, as they're not just drums and guitars with post-production, which makes the entire sound of the record much more focused on the ambient electronic side. The background still usually features a layer of noise or droning guitar and either the trademark screams of Chip King or one of the guests (the inclusion of which does give the vocal side of this record a bit of range). There are a lot of surprises, like a drum sample continuously getting stretched until it's mangled and unnatural and a sudden halt followed by a piano and strings and Chrissy Wolpert break, a throwback to the album's opening act, which obviously does get corrupted by distortion almost immediately. And then there's the final track, which features a reading of Czech author Bohumil Hrabal's novel Too Loud A Solitude. I'm not going to spoil it, but hopefully you don't really relate to it, but you can't help to empathize. Just like Woolf, Hrabal commited suicide.

The Body not only don't linger too long in the same place, but also managed to create their most emotional record, the peak of emptiness. Get bodied.





Written on 07.06.2018 by Doesn't matter that much to me if you agree with me, as long as you checked the album out.


Comments

Comments: 6   Visited by: 111 users
07.06.2018 - 16:16
Auntie Sahar
Drone Empress
Eternal cool kid points for somehow managing to tie a Death Grips reference into a review for The Body

....now that I think of it, I could actually totally see a collab between those two happening
----
I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go.

~ II. VII
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07.06.2018 - 18:40
RaduP
CertifiedHipster
Written by Auntie Sahar on 07.06.2018 at 16:16

Eternal cool kid points for somehow managing to tie a Death Grips reference into a review for The Body

....now that I think of it, I could actually totally see a collab between those two happening

My body is ready


get it?

body?
----
Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking
One day there will be no heart at all?
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07.06.2018 - 18:58
Rating: 8
musicalkaratekid

I consider this to be the band's best album, by which I mean the one release I've heard from The Body that I've actually listened to and enjoyed more than just a few times.
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08.09.2018 - 09:45
LuciferOfGayness
Account deleted
Nice descriptive review but what is it that makes you score it so high, whats here to enjoy? (not saying the score is wrong)
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08.09.2018 - 12:55
RaduP
CertifiedHipster
Written by Guest on 08.09.2018 at 09:45

Nice descriptive review but what is it that makes you score it so high, whats here to enjoy? (not saying the score is wrong)

More often than not it's hard to exactly put into words what makes me like or dislike about an album, it's quite about the gut feeling. Does it feel engaging? Does it feel like something is missing? Does it sound awkward?

In this case, I found this album to be very engaging and impactful. It's hard not to use these two words when describing music that I like, but it just be like that sometimes,
----
Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking
One day there will be no heart at all?
Loading...
16.09.2018 - 10:23
LuciferOfGayness
Account deleted
Written by RaduP on 08.09.2018 at 12:55

Written by Guest on 08.09.2018 at 09:45

Nice descriptive review but what is it that makes you score it so high, whats here to enjoy? (not saying the score is wrong)

More often than not it's hard to exactly put into words what makes me like or dislike about an album, it's quite about the gut feeling. Does it feel engaging? Does it feel like something is missing? Does it sound awkward?

In this case, I found this album to be very engaging and impactful. It's hard not to use these two words when describing music that I like, but it just be like that sometimes,

Yep, awesome album and what you said.

Even if its a very diversed album I think they are holding it together awesomely. Something I may have missed in earlier releases but thats probably mostly down to the fact that I have to listen more to the old stuff.
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