Em-Body The Happiness No One Deserves
T
he Body – No One Deserves Happiness
This album starts out scary. I was listening to it while playing the classic hit, Ultima III: Exodus. I put it on right before I went into the Snake dungeon. The hardest part about the dungeons in Ultima games is remembering where you are. Even though I have played through other dungeons in the game, I keep forgetting to look at the compass. That’s what listening to No One Deserves Happiness feels like. One can be wondering around and looking for the Mark of the Snake when the torch blows out and all sense of direction is lost.
The entire album has distorted off in the distance youtube llama style screaming throughout. This is a very annoying sound. Eventually it will sound more like a llama and less like a deranged psychotic episode.
The first four tracks climb downwards into an increasingly unappealing mire of comforting horns and female vocals mixed with a high pitched squeal and lightly assertive pounding of samples and deep toms. Track two has a calm plateau at the end followed by grind and noise for track three. Track four is aptly named “Hallow / Hollow.”
After this, the whole feel starts to change. The next track, “Two Snakes,” is reminiscent of wondering in a dungeon, but more of an acid techno remix of one of the first tracks. “Adamah” continues down this track and sounds like the background music from an 80’s love making scene if the scene took place on a conveyor belt full of glass scraping against limestone rocks while Sinead O’Connor yells into a bottomless pit.
There is a super snoozer on track 8, which is just noise with atmosphere, but it serves as contrast. “Prescience” is mostly noise with a less interesting ending. The final track is a good ending to this atmospheric noise album. There is some lyrical content and a nice wind down.
Their bandcamp feels like it was written by someone who doesn’t really listen to noise. This certainly is not the “grossest pop album,” though I imagine someone thought that due to the textured layering of samples, singing, and instrumentation.
Like music that will never be on the radio? Give No One Deserves Happiness a shot.
The balron’s poison wicks away more life with each step and spent torches are tossed away like a trail of bread crumbs as foot prints circle in endless patterns like the white on black text of the Body’s bandcamp page.