In a lot of ways it’s not what you’d expect. And that’s what makes it great. If there’s nothing else you take away from this review, let it be those first two sentences.
You shouldn’t need an introduction to either The Body or Full of Hell. The two bands have become most prolific. The Body’s unique take on noisy doom is, time and time again, a most harrowing experience. Even their latest offering, No One Deserves Happiness, a self-proclaimed”gross” pop album, is as shook up and unhinged as anything else the band has done.
Meanwhile, Full of Hell’s noise infused, grind attack has been pushed further and further with each release. Their last collaboration with Merzbow was one of 2014’s most intense and merciless records, demonstrating that their previous assaults were only a taste to come. So what’s it like when you throw The Body and Full of Hell together…?
It’s a harrowing goddamn nightmare. And in the best way possible.
So what did you come to expect from this? Ask yourself that if you’re familiar with the bands? Something grindy, something doomy, something noisy? You get those things in spades. But the equation is all fucked up. It adds up but not in the way you’d expect it to. Just take the intro, and title, track to One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache (Oh-em-gee it’s a Hole reference. Good on you for calling it. Now let it go): listen to the structure. Listen to the cross between Dylan Walker and Chip King’s vocals. The high pitched cries and vicious screams. It’s like a killer and it’s victim letting loose together. The torture and the torturer letting loose. It’d be cathartic if it weren’t flaying flesh from bone.
There isn’t a safe moment on this record. What’s surprising about it is that it’s not just a grind/noise/doom approach. There’s more going on here. The bands don’t work to meet their genres. They work to transcend them. It’s not a track-by-track exploration. This isn’t a “collaboration” so much as it is two forces gnashing at each other; whipping the other and telling them it’s never enough. The parts where Full of Hell feel stronger are actually more dominated by The Body and vice-versa. And it’s goddamn ethereal. Like they’re breaking each other’s psyche’s inch by inch. Don’t believe me? See their vicious cover of Leonard Cohen’s “The Butcher” (and if you don’t know his work, get on it): the piece is drowned it a thick layer of bass and electronics with Walker’s desperate screams splashing amongst the tidal force, and King coming in here and there. It’s a aural lobotomy.
So is there a dominate force on this album? The only dominance you’ll come to know the illusion of safety. One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache is the first time I’ve felt genuinely unsafe listening to something. It’s disorienting. Nothing ever goes the way you’d expect it to go. Where it feels like there should be a blast, there’s electronics. Where it feels like things should be heavy, there’s only noise and disorientation. It’s a spectacle; something rarely seen in any form of art these days. And if you’d told me back in January I’d be writing this, I’d have laughed in your face.
One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache is unusual, disgusting, and just as harrowing as you’d come to expect from either The Body or Full of Hell. It’s one of the only truly unhinged albums that has come out in the last several years. Both bands have consistently managed to push their sounds over and over again. By now most would have burned out. Seems that every time their at their most intense it’s really only a preview for what’s next. This is pain, agony, despair and desperation. By the time their next albums come out it’ll probably seem like a paper cut.
Score: 10/10
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