Uniform & The Body — Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back
This past week I had the opportunity to see Uniform open for BORIS, so it was rather fortuitous to find this album in my review pile. They played a mesmerizing blend of hardcore, industrial, and noise and even played an inspired cover of P.I.L.'s "Order of Death".
Rhode Island's The Body is a band I should have more familiarity with. The duo has been kicking around since the mid-2000s, playing their own brand of sludge-metal. They've had many collaborative outings with bands like Thou and Full of Hell and now with Brooklyn's Uniform.
Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back features nine genre-bending tracks that pull from the wide playground of underground music. While industrial is the foundation for the album, you also hear influences spanning from power electronics to noise, to electronica, to sludge metal, to even hip hop.
Tracks "Gallows in Heaven" and "Not Good Enough" set the stage with crushing drums that sound massive, pulsing noise and dual vocalists that alternate between gruff shouts and piercing shrieks. Dark and plodding, I thought I figured out where these opening salvos were leading me and then "Vacancy" comes on and dashes those expectations. It's a darkly danceable piece that sounds like a mutant version of New Order. "The Patron Saint of Regret" slows the beats down and adds a female vocalist to mix. "Day Of Atonement" takes us further down the rabbit hole, adding a hip hop flavor to the collab's repertoire. "Waiting For the End of the World" takes a dark ambient turn with gloomy atmospherics and sung to spoken female vocals that reminds me of something from She Spread Sorrow. "Contempt" finishes off things highlighting some of The Body's sludge metal stylings.
Overall, if the thought of some mutant blend of Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, God Flesh, New Order, Whitehouse, P.I.L. and Merzbow tickles your fancy, then you'll love Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back. I certainly did.