Bodysnatcher is ready for a new battle.
With their fourth album, Hell is Here, Hell is Home, the American band led by Kyle Medina (vocals), Kyle Carter (guitar), Kyle Shope (bass), and Chris Whited (drums) releases their second album on MNRK Heavy.
The Maker hits us hard with a horrifying sample, quickly followed by thick riffs that immediately make us want to mosh, accompanied by powerful screams that surge at the same pace. While some passages are quite sharp and dissonant, the band focuses on crushing slowness, as on that killer break that joins Writhe and Coil to showcase highly effective hardcore influences tailored to let the pit go wild at live shows before diving back into the heaviness. The noisy final leads us to Plague of Flies and its strangely melodious harmonics, which bring a slight touch of softness to these waves of raw power, but it is once again the break and its palm-mutes that serve as the track’s climax before handing the baton to May Your Memory Rot and its equally bellicose influences. The track is perfect for getting festival crowds fired up this summer, just like Violent Obsession, which immediately follows suit at a brisk pace, slowing down only to signal the incoming mosh pit that will sweep us away effortlessly before leaving us in dissonance, followed by No Savior and its heavy atmosphere. Once the intro is over, the rhythm section comes back to hit us as usual, taking advantage of the instruments’ very low tuning to thicken the final while skillfully placing a few backing vocals, then the band naturally transitions into Blade Between the Teeth, sprinkling its shrill harmonics here and there. We continue with Two Empty Caskets, which offers a very welcome jerky touch to make you bang your head frantically like a madman, then we move on to Survive or Die, a track on which the Americans welcome Scott Vogel (Terror), who brings a contagious old-school energy before we’re already back to Hell Is Home, the eponymous track, which closes out the album with one last dose of hellish heaviness, coupled with the vocalist’s roars and a few mysterious passages.
If you love aggressive Deathcore and thick riffs, Bodysnatcher is probably already on your playlist! Nothing particularly new with Hell is Here, Hell is Home, but its riffs will have you moshing in no time!
80/100