The Body & Full Of Hell ‘One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache’ CD/DD 2016

Traditionally, The Body’s collaborations (to date they’ve paired up with The Haxan Cloak, Krieg, Thou and Vampilla) have allowed them to branch out, experiment and build upon their pre-existing sound. However, their long awaited release with Full Of Hell sounds more like a full-length standalone than a collaborative effort and this is, in part, due to how much both acts have in common. While The Body take a slow and torturous approach, Full Of Hell tear through at speed, wielding a sledgehammer – the journey may be different, but the destination is the same and both bands possess an uncanny ability to both unnerve and thoroughly depress their listeners. When The Body’s bilious, sluggish and triturating consonances meet with grindcore tour-de-force that is Full Of Hell, the two just seem to glue together to create something bleak and uncomfortable – which is ultimately what both bands are best known for anyway.

Lifting an infamous line from Hole’s Doll Parts (“one day you will ache like I ache”), this record may fail to appeal to your inner feminist but will instead give you an up close and terrifying look at mental health. They don’t scrimp on samples, and quotes such as “I need my anger it’s all I’ve got right now” (season 1, episode 6 of Gracepoint) and “loss, loss, loss, loss, loss” (You Don’t Know Jack) move mountains in terms of amplifying the negative emotions being portrayed.  Dylan Walker’s throaty roars compliment Chip King’s harrowing screams, although both have been placed low in the mix to allow the jarring qualities of both snare and kick drum to take centre stage alongside battered sounding 808 instrumentals.

An ambitious cover of Leonard Cohen’s The Butcher turns the well-known ballad into a pernicious wall of noise, lending it a creepy, apocalyptic quality. Ultimately, The Body and Full Of Hell are a match made in Heaven (or Hell, depending on your viewpoint) and instead of changing each other’s sound radically, pairing up has in fact just upheld the respective qualities of what makes each act so great in their own right. As well as shining a spotlight on the thorny topic of depression, each band has magnified the strengths in each other, allowing for listeners to not only admire their collaborative effort but what they are bringing to the table as individuals too.

Label: Neurot Recordings
The Body: Facebook | Bandcamp
Full Of Hell: Official | Facebook | Bandcamp

Scribed by: Angela Davey