The Body
For more than 15 years, Portland, Ore.-based metal band The Body have been working to expand the boundaries of their adopted genre. Such efforts culminated in No One Deserves Happiness, released earlier this year on Thrill Jockey Records. The record simultaneously finds the duo—drummer Lee Buford and guitarist/vocalist/programmer Chip King—embracing both noise rock and a more pop-oriented approach to songwriting. Standout songs like “Adamah,” featuring guest vocalist Maralie Armstrong, could even be described as hauntingly beautiful.
Armstrong has not joined the act for their recent tour; neither has frequent collaborator/vocalist Chrissy Wolpert. And while it would be wonderful to hear such Wolpert-led tracks as “The Fall and the Guilt” in a live setting, The Body’s recent set at Quarter’s made it clear that Buford and King can carry a show on their own. Eschewing the nuances that the band explores on No One Deserves Happiness, The Body made the collective decision to simply steamroll the audience into submission with a collection of songs that could best be described as Burzum-meets-Man is the Bastard. Yes, it was loud.
This does not mean, however, that the band did not embrace at least a portion of their more experimental side. King spent the duration of the set hunched over a briefcase containing a myriad of effects pedals, which he employed selectively throughout the band’s set. Noise can become masturbatory fairly quickly; King did a good job of reigning in the excesses often associated with the genre. Before the listener could become too uncomfortable, the band tore into another bone-shattering riff. At the same time, Buford’s controlled, martial drumming provided an aural atmosphere of order to the often chaotic material. Such a combination made the wall of noise created by the duo all the more powerful—and stretched the Quarter’s house P.A. to its breaking point.
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Local upstarts Owlscry and scene veterans The Old Northwest showcased that Milwaukee can still produce a heavy band or two. The plaintive vocals of Pete Railand brought something of an indie rock feel to the slo-core offered up by The Old Northwest, reminding the listening of a heavy metal version of Codeine. Owlscry, on the other hand, was anything but understated. Vocalist Michael Jurek tried his hardest to make up for the absence of a guitar player (which definitely detracted from their overall sound), as he brought a unique sense of range to the band’s black metal offerings. His vocals ranged from guttural moans to almost operatic singing throughout the band’s brief set. The performance of drummer Jeremiah Messner proved equally as adaptable, easily moving from sludge beats to blast beats, often in the same song.
