Social media is one of humankind’s worst inventions, a pox on humanity that should be dissolved in acid, never to be seen again. While, yes, people are able to find friends, fuck partners, lovers, and like-minded individuals, it’s been used against us just as much, if not more. We’ve seen fascism rise and be championed by people who have no idea they’d be under the boot, as well as heart emojis splashed on posts that basically are love letters to capitalism.
“Atrocity Machine,” the fourth full-length from Body Void, isn’t so much consumed with social media as it is our society that is crumbling under the weight of severe financial inequality, cops murdering people with little to no consequences, and the sloppiest grifter of all time creating a rabid fanbase through his multiple crimes and treason. If you’re paying attention and not absolutely fucking sick, chances are you’re part of the problem. Body Void’s noise-drenched doom and sludge always has been monstrously heavy, ridiculously so, and this time around the band—vocalist/guitarist/bassist/synth player Willow Ryan, electronic wizard/sampler/live bassist Janys-Iren Faughn, drummer Edward Holgerson—adds layers that feel ripped from deep in the cosmos to enhance their spite and rage.
“Microwave” opens in a cosmic void, buzzing over your head and mixing into your brain, letting the strangeness bleed into “Human Greenhouse” that explodes with alien melodies and strange riffs that wreck your bones. Shrieks hammer as a hypnotic fury barrels over you, the playing going off and battering, mashing with intense heat that melts faces. The screams rip as the playing drubs, the screams continuing to eat into your psyche, swirling and howling into oblivion. “Flesh Market” is awash in grime, the blistering intensity igniting and making breathing a near impossibility, scorching with a deep space heat ray. “Fair wage, every piece is for sale, what organ is worth trading for food?” Ryan wails. The playing pounds slowly but surely, howls ripping into your guts and pulling out the contents mercilessly, punishing you with continual pressure. The playing flattens and leaves you prone, bringing down the hammers and pounding away until you lose consciousness.
“Cop Show” pours heat as the onslaught is on, the shrieks pounding away as the playing lathers with power. “Close the schools, fund the police, the prisons are full, modern slavery,” Ryan howls, and things just get more aggravated from there. Sounds suffocate as the playing gets more intense and ferocious, howls curdling, the noise burning hair from your body, spiraling and crushing, boiled by a sonic pulse. The title track rips for 10:03, and the shrieks rain down, noise sizzles, and the fires burn forcefully, the outer space vibes returning hard. The playing is burly and tricky, the force decimating faces, dizzying madness making you claw for the walls to maintain balance. Vicious pressure turns into a battering ram, pushing through the gates and scraping to a painful finish. Closer “Divine Violence” runs 10:41 and is devastating from the start, the roars scorching as a heat bolt from beyond burns everything to a crisp, Ryan wailing, “Game show odds, win a prize, die to see a gleeful idol, live to watch the news.” The force is drubbing and massive, burly and menacing, moving toward you like a beast, prowling and adding a heavy doom presence. The playing smears soot as the noise increases, sounds curving and liquifying, the madness increasing as everything is sucked into a vortex.
“Atrocity Machine” is like a last straw for those of us whose spines are buckling under the pressure of a bloodthirsty capitalist society where we matter less every day, and the truth is something to be mocked and flushed. Body Void never have held back with their rage and disgust, but they’ve never sounded as frightening and corrosive as they do here. This is a record to stoke the flames in the hearts of the oppressed, because if you’re not going to respond now, you might never get another chance.
For more on the band, go here: https://www.facebook.com/bodyvoid
To buy the album, go here: https://shop.prostheticrecords.com/
For more on the label, go here: https://prostheticrecords.com/
Meat Mead Metal 