The Body keep fucking with us.
If Chip King (guitar/vocals) and Lee Buford (drums) aren’t collaborating with sludge/doom mavens Thou, electronic producer The Haxan Cloak or the Assembly Of Light Women’s Choir, they’re touring with Neurosis but still acting like the most miserable people on Earth. No One Deserves __ Happiness sees them creating “the grossest pop album of all time” and might be their boldest statement yet. After dusting off an 808 drum machine, reminiscing over the iconic rhythms of Always Something There To Remind Me, Tainted Love and Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) and employing AOLWC members to belt out decent approximations of Debbie Harry and Diana Ross, the noise gets piled on.
The samples and effected instrumentation are searing and ear-wrenching, the atmospheric is simultaneously blackened oppressive and chintzy and Chip’s shriek is either going to kill you or make you kill yourself.
There are moments where the disparity between 80s pop and harrowing sludge becomes a chasm too wide to be bridged, but with so much ambition at work, minor hiccups and missteps are expected. And surprisingly, in the combination of incendiary sludge and dance-y pop, there are few.
