ALBUM REVIEW: Atrocity Machine – Body Void
For the most part, sludge/drone/doom titans BODY VOID uses your typical instruments – vocals, guitar and drums all loom large in their sound – but they’ve made a career of playing those instruments with all the subtlety of a frenzied ice pick lobotomy performed by a flaming crazed killer. Now having expanded to a trio, they unleash Atrocity Machine as their most destructive effort to date.
More so than ever before – including 2021’s superb Bury Me Beneath This Rotting Earth – there are moments on this album where you’ll think you’re listening to a series of recorded demolitions. Willow Ryan’s guitar chords don’t ring out – they explode; Edward Holgerson’s drums don’t chime and rumble – they cleave and raze. The only hint of intricacy to be found is in the droning synths and electronics that have been added through Janys-Iren Faughn, which are laced through this record like a trickle of poison that desecrates a great banquet. It slots into their sound effortlessly and gives BODY VOID a terrifying new torture weapon, adding a sinister vibe that makes your skin crawl. From the opening bars of Human Greenhouse, BODY VOID sound more evil than ever before, and the shrieking electronics of the title track at the end of the album suitably round out the start of the band’s new age.
Even with the new addition, fans will know what to expect from BODY VOID and they will not be disappointed with the ultraviolence of Atrocity Machine, but it is clear that they have dialled up the intensity to previously inconceivable levels. Informed by a world that seems to be getting worse every day, the topics of news-induced anxiety and capitalism’s destructive effects on humanity run rife on this album. Flesh Market is a scathing assessment of a “Cannibal nation / Controlled by hungry / Mouths to feed” and Divine Violence is poetic in its harsh reminder of the cataclysmic damage being done to our planet: “You will realise / As you’re vaporised by eternity / How powerless you were” is a warning worth heeding.
The thematic centre of police brutality is the most striking of all though, and Cop Show’s closing remarks of “Turn on the cop show / Murder for free / A cast of thousands / Sent to their graves” is chilling. Willow Ryan sounds tired and desperate but uses that malignance to deliver a vile performance that has become their calling card over the years. They roar and grunt and spit, as if they’ve stolen these noises from some of the foulest beasts to have ever existed, a fitting vehicle for the anger we should all be feeling. This isn’t just a rant, this is a rallying cry for us to change our ways if we want any kind of future.
As if their original iteration wasn’t accomplished enough, BODY VOID kick off their second coming with their best and most important work yet. Visceral, vicious and volatile with a central core that is stirring and moving, Atrocity Machine is one of the year’s most essential releases and cements this band’s place as one of the genre’s most important proponents.
Rating: 9/10
Atrocity Machine is set for release on October 13th via Prosthetic Records.
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