Intensive Care and The Body - Was I good Enough? (2025)

Two major forces in the industrial/noise metal scene, Intensive Care (Andrew Nolan) and The Body are used to releasing collaborative albums, so this one, called Was I good Enough? was bound to happen. The result isn't really surprising either. The good thing is that the quality is as high as expected. I just regret it lacks maybe a dose of craziness/unpredictability to make it really stand out among both band discographies. That been said, they've done another excellent album and I enjoy listening to it, as will anyone into dark industrial sounds.

 

The Body BC page. 

Intensive Care/Andrew Nolan BC page. 

 

The Body - The Crying Out of Things (2024)

The Body have been sucessfully experimenting in collaborations with many artists, but it's also good to have them back with a new album on their own (their ninth). The Crying Out of Things sounds a bit like a return to the basics of their  industrial / noise with drums, guitars, screams and electronics sound. But like always they also introduces something new, and I'd say here it would be the use of background synths, bringing at times discreet melodies and at times an additional layer or colour to the overall atmosphere of the song. But no worry, it is enriching their sound, but without making it losing its raw and noisy feel. 25 years after their beginning, The Body keeps on evolving and delivering albums as good as ever. Thank you guys! Keep going!

The BC page.

 

The Body & Dis Fig - Orchards of A Futile Heaven (2024)

Yes, Orchards of A Futile Heaven is another collaborative album from The Body, this time with DJ and vocalist from Berlin Dis Fig (Felicia Chen). As expected, it's good, and it's especially recommended to people that like The Body music but are put off by their monotonous shrieking vocals. Here Dis Fig is doing most of the vocal, and she's did a great job, a lot more melodic and diverse, but also visceral and intense, fitting well the abrasive, dark and industrial sound produced by the trio. Among the most successful collaborative albums with The Body.

The BC page

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The Body & OAA - Enemy of Love (2022)

At first I've been disappointed by this album, we can distinguish the somewhat glitch/jungle electronic of OAA in the music, but overall Enemy of Love sounds very close to the bleak industrial doom The Body are doing on their own. But after a few listen the tracks get into my head, and even if it's less different than some of their other collaborations, I have to admit that it produced a good album, and I enjoy it as such. Not their most interesting release but a good one nevertheless.

The BC page.

 

My 7 favourites industrial/electronic music albums in 2019

Here are my seven favourites industrial/electronic albums for 2019.

Follow the link to read the review (and there you'll find a Bandcamp link).
I give it in alphabetical order.

Hide - Hell is Here

Hold Me down - Hold Me Down

Lingua Ignota - Caligula

Ossia - Devil's Dance

Ten Thousand Miles of Arteries - Survival Bloom

Uniform & The Body - Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back

Zonal - Wrecked

 

Uniform & The Body - Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back (2019)

Uniform. The Body. A second collaborative album even better than the first one. Still on Sacred Bones Records. Do I really need to say more? One of the essentials listens of the year for anyone into industrial music (or a really good one to get into industrial music). Heavily recommended.

The BC page.

The Body & Uniform - Mental Wounds Not Healing (2018)

The Body already took part in a few collaborative album, and Uniform is another band among the few best recent industrial metal band, so them doing a collaborative album, Mental Wounds Not Healing, released last year with Sacred Bones records, was no big surprise. The mix of the two bands really works well producing cohesive songs while the identity of both bands are kept. As could be expected this is an excellent industrial metal album. Actually it should have been in my list of best albums from 2018.

The BC page.

my favourites 2017 releases

Here we go, here's my list of the 2017 releases I enjoyed he most (grind excepted since I did a specific list for grind, see my previous post). I give those 21 in alphabetical order :


American - Violate and Control    my review

Archspire - Relentless Mutation    my review

Brainbombs - Inferno                    my review

Broken English Club - The English Beach   my review

Burning Tree - Ossuary light         my review  

Converge - The Dusk in Us            my review

Dead Neanderthals / Sly and he Family Drone - Molar Wrench   my review

Dying Fetus - Wrong One to Fuck With        my review

Earthgrave - The Verge of Human Abyss     my review

Ex Eye - Ex Eye                            my review

Full Of Hell - Trumpeting Ecstasy                my review

Henry Kane - Den Förstörda Människans Rike    my review

Ingurgitating Oblivion - Vision Wallows in Symphonies of Light   my review

Pissed Jeans - Why Love Now     my review

Power Trip - Nighmare Logic     my review

Ruin - Drown in Blood                 my review

The Body & Full of Hell - Ascending a Montain of Heavy Light   my review

Tricky - Ununiform                      my review

Unholy Vampiric Slaughter Sect - Canticle Bound in Spirit - The Faith in Vampyric Blood                           my review

Uniform - Wake in Fright            my review

Unsane - Sterilize                        my review

The Body & Full of Hell - Ascending a Mountain of Heavy Light (2017)

Ascending a Mountain of Heavy Light is the new collaborative album from The Body and Full of Hell. I don' really know how they worked together, but like their previous collaboration it sounds more like The Body featuring Full of Hell here and there and most of the time it could pass by something from The Body alone. I still wonder what is the point of collaborating with a noisegrind band if you end up with only thirty seconds of blast beats on the album. That being said I won't complain much because the album is awesome and among he best The Body released. On this one their industrial doom / power electronics is surprising, daring, and heavy and noisy as fuck with some finely crafted touches of light, just enough to bring the perfect contrast. Easily one of my favourite albums released this year.

The BC page.

The Body & Full of Hell - One day you will ache like I ache (2016)

After their softer album "No one deserves happiness" The Body are back to their nightmarish usual with this collaboration, called "One day you will ache like I ache", with the hardcore / grind band Full of Hell. Maybe one of their most sinister release with a lot of harsh noise / dark ambient in their industrial doom / drone base. Plus some more violence added with the blast beats / faster / more chaotic / more dynamic drumming from Full of Hell's drummer. And maybe the few track where you have this addition are the best, like on the title track starting with some industrial dub beats before all hell breaks loose in a blast beats / free extreme metal whirlwind ending on a good noise guitar part. It's another good album from The Body, no doubt about it, but the problem is that it sounds a lot more like a The Body album featuring Full of Hell on some tracks than really a collaborative album. I feel like the collaboration does not reach it's full potential, or just sometimes. most of the time it sounds like another good The Body album. which is ok, but the collaboration with Full of Hell should have been used  to more effects. Maybe another time...
The album is released by Neurot recordings.

The Body - No One Deserves Happiness (2016)

No One Deserves Happiness is the new The Body album, their "pop" album. Ok it's more melodic and especially with more melodic female singing, but it sounds more like an "industrial doom meets trip-hop" thing  than really "pop". We find all the usual The Body elements : slow paced drumming, inustrial beats, heavy doomy guitars, drone / noise elements, tortured shrieks. Even the inclusion of female melodic singing is not really a new element since they collaborated a few time with The Assembly of light choir. Here it is Maralie Armstrong who does this melodic singing. We already knew it coould work well with their music, And No one deserves happiness is another proof. I'd say it's a record that offer more a deeper exploration of one element of their sound than a radical change. Is the album good? It is, it respects The Body very high standard of excellency. Maybe I prefer their, more extreme, recent collaboration with Krieg, but I also really enjoy this one, and as usual some songs are awesome, really inspired. Now that they already have done many different collaborations what would be interesting would be to hear how they could propose something different and surprise us without collaborating with someone outside the band.

The Bandcamp page.

The Body & Krieg (2015)

This is a new collaborative album from The Body, this time with Krieg (Neill Jameson). Should we consider it "another" collaborative release with The Body, well technically it is but I'd rather say this is an especially good one. Not that one of those have been disappointing, but I think this one is really good by their own very high standards. Yes, The Body managed once again to impress me, with another terrific sonic display of intensity and creativity. And the Krieg's guy confirm that his musical range is wider than (quality) black metal and the collaboration result in something more than a mix of The Body and black metal. In fact there is little trace of something specifically black metal on this album, except maybe Neill Jameson vocal contribution (and even that is not completely standard black metal vocals). But it sure is an especially aggressive and cathartic "sonic incarnation" of The Body that results from the collaboration. The overall sound is very industrial, with even some techno beats, and creepy keyboards parts. It sounds like a vicious and surprising mix of sludge, technoise, dark ambient, horror soundtrack. The global atmosphere evokes The Swans, Godflesh or Scorn, but of course it's the unique personnality of The Body that dominates. This atmosphere is very strong but maybe what's even more imrpessive is the quality of the songwriting, each song having it's distinct feel, and some songs really standing out as among the best and more memorable The Body ever did. After The tears of job Ep (read my review HERE), the collaboration with Vampillia read my review HERE), and this one, this is a great year for The Body, and this new collaboration is maybe its peak.

The Body & Vampillia - Xorohabin (2015)

The Body are always experimenting and are never afraid of radical contrast (like their use of choir vocals in their grim indus / drone sludge) so their new collaboration with Vampillia, or anything they would do, shouldn't be such a surprise.  Still, among the different bands or people they have done music with, Vampillia is the most surprising, the farthest from their own musical universe. Vampillia comes from Japan (Osaka) and plays some versatile kind of post-rock with neo-clasical elements (with piano, chords, etc.) it's not possible to describe what they do because it's always changing anyway but most of the time their music is not really dark. So how does sound their collaboration record called Xorahabin? As expected it's interesting, we find elements from both bands but it's not just a juxtaposition of the music of the two bands. It succeeds to sound as a whole. So what do we have? noise, or even harsh noise, heavy beats, desperate screams and a bit of more melodic choir vocals, melodies with chords or strings, a bit of piano, a dark & ominous atmosphere that is quite cinematic. Four songs in a bit less than half an hour. If you like The Body you'll probably like this one, if you like Vampillia you'll like it if you also like rawer & darker stuff and you should give it a try anyway. It's a really good record, not just original & interesting but also "enjoyable" in it's special way. Not a realease you listen one time and say "ok, it's interesting" but dont listen to it twice, not I 've already listened to it quite a lot and each time I find something more in it. Recommended stuff.

The Body - The tears of Job (2015)

The tears of Job is the new self release The Body record. On the origin it's done as a gift to people taking part in the crowdfunding of their new tour van. And a cool gift it is. On these five tracks the stress is on their more noise drone/ industrial side, with also a few discreet melodies on keyborads and electro beats giving it a slight post-punk / darkwave feel on the foruth track. there's also the usual shrieking and a bit of female melodic vocals (I suppose from the Assembly of light choir?).  the fifth track start with these melodic female vocals and you wonder if it's going to be the most melodic track from The Body. But it's a cover of a Jane's addiction song called "I would for you", and anyway it stops after three minutes and then you have droning noise for the rest of the twelve minutes of the track. So it was just a ray of light in their usual bleak grimness. And that's also why we love them! The tears of Job is another excellent release from The Body, as unique as their music always is.

Their FB page.



  

The Body - I shall die here (2014)

On this album, I shall die in here, The terrific drone doom duo called The Body is teaming with the guy releasing dark ambient music as The Haxan cloak. and it's a good move because I shall die in here is excellent. the additions from The Haxan cloak are subtle, it's close to previous The Body works (for ex read HERE my review of Christ reedeemers), but it still bring some few but "nice" changes to the music of the duo with some industrial / dubstep beats and sounds adding to the coldness and bleakness of the songs. it offers an interesting variation of their sound while keeping it as heavy, noisy and nihilistic as usual.

The Bandcamp page

2013 : the heavy, sludgy and / or psychedelic moments

here's my selection of my favourite albums released in 2013 that belongs to the heavy / trippy family : heavy metal, doom, heavy rock, sludge, psychedelic rock and stuff related. 16 albums not really given in a specific order.
of course you're welcome to  say in the comments section which other album would, in your opinion, deserves to be in this kind of list.

-Oranssi pazuzu - Valonielu                           my review

-Windhand - Soma                                          my review

-Subrosa - More constant than the gods        my review

-Horse latitudes - black soil                           my review & interview

-The Body - Christs, redeemers                      my review

-Battilus - concrete sustain                             my review

-Nibiru - Caosgon                                           my review & interview

-Pyramidal - frozen galaxies                          my review

-Seven sisters of sleep - opium morals           my review

-Primitive man - scorn                                    my review

-Blaak heat Shujaa - The edge of an era        my review

-Zodiac - A place to hide                                 my review

-Hollow mirros - Hollow mirrors II                my review

-Valient Thorr - our own masters                   my review

-Naam - vow                                                   my review

-Domovoyd - Oh sensibility                             my review

The body - Christs, Redeemers (2013)

Nowadays you'll find many droning doom band. ok. but none like The body.

Christs, redeemers the new album (out in october) of the duo from Portland, is of course heavy, I mean really heavy, slow and noisy, with nightmarish shrieks as vocals. but not only that, with their drone and noise bordering ambient / industrial, some strings parts and melodic female vocals (yes! these vocals are performed by The assembly of light choir) they create a kind of eerie atmosphere. bleak misery, nihilism, but also light. this atmosphere that coupled with the organic feel of the heavy elements (drums and bass, I mean a lot of really heavy bass), gives this album a kind of haunted presence, slowly infiltrating the listener. it's not music as usual, it's truly a sonic experience. it's not for everybody but I recommend you try it. 

their Bandcamp (but without the new album).

one of the new song (to attempt openness) streaming here.