Band:	The Body / Full Of Hell
Album:	Ascending A Mountain Of Heavy Light [Collaboration]
Style:	Avantgarde metal, Industrial metal
Release date:	November 17, 2017
A review by:	Auntie Sahar

01. Light Penetrates
02. Earth Is A Cage
03. The King Laid Bare
04. Didn't The Night End
05. Our Love Conducted With Shields Aloft
06. Master's Story
07. Farewell, Man
08. I Did Not Want To Love You So

If you're not a fan of fucked up music, you may as well want to stop reading this review. And no, I don't mean "fucked up" like Belphegor, or Behemoth, or other bands making young teenagers moist with their watered down, consumerist spins on religious blasphemy. I'm talking about the black, abysmal realm that you inevitably enter when purveyors of extreme sonic terror begin to copulate. Best be off with you if you're not a fan of true, nightmarish soundcrafting. This is one for the freaks.

The Body and Full Of Hell have both proven themselves as major innovative forces within their respective genres over the past few years, The Body with their bizarre fusion of sludge with electronic, dark ambient music, and Full Of Hell with their ferocious brand of industrial, noise infused grindcore. It was only a matter of time before these terrifying, rule breaking beasts decided to cross paths with each other. Last year's One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache was the first result of this encounter, but both bands clearly didn't have their fill, as this year's Ascending A Mountain Of Heavy Light demonstrates. While the previous collab was considerably aggressive and raw, feauturing a hearty dose of Full Of Hell's grind personality, this one seems to go almost in the opposite direction, embracing more moderate tempos and otherworldly electronic noises towards the creation of a more hypnotizing, painful, and all around suspenseful sound. In a way it's really this formula that's more satisfying, because, as those already familiar with The Body and Full Of Hell could testify, both bands have already proven themselves capable of violent, sonic fury within their own discographies to begin with, so together it's interesting to see them focusing instead on the the more eerie, dreamlike aspects of their sounds. The only track here that really comes close to the uptempo, more aggressive vibe of earlier is "Earth Is A Cage," but, taking the collab in its entirety, the approach here feels much more like an exception rather than the rule.

Elsewhere, for the bulk of Ascending A Mountain Of Heavy Light, a more shapeless, plodding sound dominates, more restrained in terms of tempo but still incredibly ominous and imposing. It's not so much that the combination of the bands' sounds has become any less intense or frightening, merely that they've shifted gears on the exact way in which it's served. In a way this delivery, more embracing of the various noise, drone, and industrial sounds these musicians all take influence from, is even more bleak and soul sucking than before, as it feels less like getting beaten at night in a dark alley and more like watching the slow, agonizing scene of a murder unfold right before your very eyes. The slowed tempo not only seems to make for a more spine tingling, torturous listening experience, but also seems to open the door for greater experimentation and a wider diversity of sound, as can be seen from the strange use of horns on "Light Penetrates," the almost dance-abe feel of "Master's Story," or the drum driven nature of "Our Love Conducted With Shields Aloft." Of course, the (in)famous, ear-splitting vocals of The Body's Chip King appear here as well, and they're no less "love them or hate them" than they were before. I'll be completely blunt: though those rooster-ish wails can get to be a bit off putting at times, it's almost impossible to imagine the music here with any other type of vocals. Put simply, they complement the horrific atmosphere and serve as the icing on the cake. The album would feel almost incomplete without them.

Ascending A Mountain Of Heavy Light is basically the collab that I wished One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache had been. These two releases form pretty great contrasts to each other, almost having a yin/yang type relationship, the latter focusing more on the frenetic aggression The Body and Full Of Hell are capable of, and the former focusing more on their less structured, more atmospheric machinations. Whether you prefer one, the other, or neither, there's no denying from this piece of work that there's far more to both of these bands than their own discographies might lead one to believe. There's stuff going on with Ascending A Mountain Of Heavy Light that you simply won't find on any other release from either party. It's layered, diverse, and with enough of a natural synthesis between the musicians involved that a lot of the time it becomes quite difficult to really distinguish who contributed what idea. And that, my friends, is the mark of a rock solid collaboration in my book.

A highlight of the year in the more experimental area of metal, and an album that really makes me wish The Body and Full Of Hell would just form their own separate band at this point. Go ascend the mountain.