Last year, Rhode Island doom duo The Body released All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood, an album that totally smashed and reshaped everyone’s perception of the doom metal genre. It was an album that featured a full women’s choir, noise, sampling and electronics. All of these elements helped make Waters such a weirdly compelling listen. Underneath all the brain scrambling weirdness is the core of The Body; chest-caving drums, muddy distorted guitar and shrieking vocals. Take those three elements and combine them with the spacious, folky post-rock of North Carolina’s Braveyoung and you get Nothing Passes, The Body & Braveyoung’s new collaborative album. Essentially.
While there are moments on Nothing Passes where you can hear the unique styles of both bands, the overall vibe of the record is something entirely distinct from their past albums. The feel of the first three songs of this record is that of unsettling melody paired with distortion and harsh noise. The first song, the aptly titled ‘Song One’ opens the record with a harsh distorted drone, like the sound of an old generator struggling to power flickering lights. Eerie violin lines creep in and slither on top of the chugging drone. ‘Song Two’ is the only song on the album that harkens back to the last Body record. The 15 minute track is the only song on the record that employs The Body vocalist/guitarist Chip King’s trademark shriek, as well as the only song that has truly discernible riff. The choral elements present throughout Waters are used to great effect on this song.
The title track is a tempo-less dronescape. The first five minutes is made up of a distorted drone that is harshly contrasted by an eerie and repetitive xylophone melody. The drone eventually dwindles into beautiful volume swells and subdued synth passages. After the violence of ‘Song Two,’ the fine tuned ambience of title track assuages the listener and creates the impression that Nothing Passes is essentially a drone record, with one “rocker” song. When the title track ends is where the record does a complete 180. After the drone decays, the lightly strummed acoustic guitar and melodic female vocals kicks off album closer ‘The Vision.’ This is hands down the best song on the album, and one of the best songs of the year. The fact that it comes as the last song is too perfect. The Body & Braveyoung somehow managed to write a full fledged gospel song. The guitars strum and twang, the soulful voice sings about a vision of being visited by angels while the choir hums along. The harsh noise of the rest of the record is still present, but buried deep under all the layers.
Nothing Passes is out September 27th on At A Loss, and is an incredibly intriguing listen. Fans of either band should take note. It was an ample opportunity for The Body to experiment and collaborate before their next album, which I honestly hope is a gospel record.
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