- One of the most prolific acts in extreme music and frequent collaborator with likeminded boundary pushers, the body are meticulous grandmasters poised in state boxes, absorbing what lies before them and all the tools they’ve to work with. Once a base for their spectral punishment has been envision and theorised, it’s an ironclad deployment of the multitudes of audio weaponry for the primary purpose of crushing your soul. Whilst being bleak, if you accept it and see what is being presented in front of you, it’ll comfort you. When phrased like that, I can’t imagine it sounds awfully appealing but if you bear with me and this record, it will all become clear. I Have Fought Against It But I Can’t Any Longer is the duo at their devastating and reassuring best.
After achieving their goal of making the grossest pop record of all time with Nobody Deserves Happiness, it was hard to see how an extreme music record that took stylistic references from Beyoncé, and Adam And The Ants, and spooky hip-hop could be followed without being consumed by its predecessor’s show. What the central unit has done is reinforce their penchant for thumping 808s, hauled in power electronics and noise, finessed their fluttering glitches, and damn near drowned Chip Kelly’s vocals under swamps removing any sibilance of lyrics, isolating them solely for strained timbre. As The Last Form of Loving deteriorates into Can Carry No Weight’s pulsating heartbeat, it becomes apparent what the body has done. On I Have Fought Against It But Can’t Any Longer, an organic behemoth has been birthed comprising equal parts nihilism, dissociation, accepting your alienation, and anger based hope. Thundering drums ignite Partly Alive as bee swarming synths and pre-jump scare discordant strings balloon into haunting grandiosity. Rapidly panned, chopped, glitch vocals segue back into galloping percussion, now furnished with rattling trap hi-hats, smothered bellows, and what can only be described as a staccato bandsaw put to music. Most, if not all of the instrumentals are suffocated by granular distortion. Charring everything sans a few harrowing elements, it makes those safe from degradation only more potent; the aforementioned strings; choral vocal incantations; rapid breathes; and the solo female vocal features. The single most powerful female voice in modern music is the album’s definite highlight. Kristin Hayter who performs under LINGUA IGNOTA, commands Nothing Stirs, with her blessed, classically trained voice. Where the body and those familiar with her sit back , knowing what’s about to unfold, the uneducated are teased in by such a voice and then subsequently made squeamish and ashamed as she snaps into desecrated screams.
the body have, and always probably will, perform in a school unattended by others. Not being angry for anger’s sake, the cacophony of sounds compartmentalises each accumulated drop of this tonal tsunami. Each is given ample room to breathe, none are tainted or diluted by another. From the sustained ambience of Sickly Heart of Sand to the two spoken word passages woven into the tapestry, it’s birthed a sentient record, aware of its harrowing and tortured nature, lurching forward in refined chaos. While the macabre chords and faint female humming draws the album to a close, it hollows out your chest and fills your chest with anaesthesia. To say this sonic séance is a curated soul cleanse may be an exaggeration but it would be a nigh impossible undertaking to find a record that imposes such a weight on you and helps you carry it. It’s a bleak record. By being bleak and abrasive, I Have Fought Against It But I Can’t Fight Any Longer teaches you to appreciate the beauty in anything.
- Matt Lynch.