Behold! The Living Corpse

To this day, no one really knows about Behold! the Living Corpse, so I feel it is my duty as an underground music snob to get you, the readers, cultured on one of sludge metal's most obscure and precious gems. What's surprising is the band has been around for nearly 15 years! What's more surprising is the band's only official, self-titled release is actually a compilation of what little material they had recorded from various sessions. And the band's only claim to fame (yeah right) is that producer / Minsk bassist Sanford Parker at some point played bass for them. What Behold! the Living Corpse have to offer is a rather avant-garde and super-heavy mix of Godflesh-ian sludge metal and weirder noise-type stuff complete with harsh electronics, keyboards, death growls, and the illustrious theremin. Oh, and there's a Godflesh cover, which kinda gave away their influence (just a little bit).

The "Skull Island" tracks are probably the weirdest things here, with some cheesy tropical isle samples including seagulls and what sounds like a tribal dance summoning Cthulu, an image quickly dashed to bits by noise so grating and loud that I feel so compelled to beat my dick every time it ravages my ears. The other tracks sound more akin to standard sludge fare, but aren't in the slightest. Instead, they take on an approach similar to Rwake's later material, forgoing Rwake's excessive sample use with electronics and keyboard lines that worm their way in and out the songs. In fact, the whole intro to "Conqueror Worm" (sometimes listed as "Death March") is a gentle, melodic keyboard / theremin interplay that builds into electronic-laden sludge / doom with great riffs and pugnacious attitude.

What is really intriguing though is the irony of the "album". It's actually quite sophisticated. The songs are all very well structured: easy to follow, but not mundanely arranged in anyway and there's a decent bit of experimentation but it's never excessive or out of place. Furthermore, there use of electronics is often ingenious, whether through accenting the riffs -- which are all solid -- or by being the focal point of the song, like the intro to "Death March". All these claims of sophistication aside, the album is still a dirty, angry sludge metal album with interludes of harsh noise. This vulgarity is reinforced by the processed, demonic vocals that act as a voice of some kind of psychotic tyrant. Not only that, but the use of the distorted vocals and weird electronic instrumentation convey a bewildering and alien atmosphere that's just oh-so charming and captivating. The ironic avant-garde flare really is the true genius to this album, and the fact that the experimentation fits perfectly with the usual doom just makes me cream my hipster pants.

Now, onto the Godflesh cover. "Go Spread Your Wings" was by far one of Broadrick's top tracks in any of his bands ever. Little can compare to the extraterrestrial doom lurch that closed Selfless. It was a culmination of Broadrick's dark, mechanical songwriting and eagerness to experiment, which, in this case, came mainly in the form of crooked ambient samplings of pianos and other strings. To me, it would seem like a really tough song to cover. However, it feels like something logical for this band to do. It is apparent that the guys in Behold! the Living Corpse know what they're doing as far as doom goes because the doom is good and the experimentation better, the exact reason this cover feels so at-home on this release. They knew what to narrow down and what to substitute as well as just capture the original oppressive atmosphere and kick it up a few disturbing notches with dirty-ass guitars and grating electronics in place of the warped ambiance. The builds that lead into the faster, more moving sections of the song are absolutely crushing here, and the "more moving sections" themselves amp up the compression ten fold. It is not so much a worthy cover as it is like a logical (in relation to this band's style) reinvention of the original; definitely the highlight of this album.

Behold! the Living Corpse ain't exactly perfect though. While most of it is stunning, there are some parts that are just dragged on for too long, namely the final moments of "Feast of the Zombie" and "Cask of Agaroth". Some of the change-ups in "Deadly Swarm" come off as a bit awkward and out of place as well. But these shortcomings thankfully don't detract too much from this extraterrestrial acid journey.

These guys need to release more material, because if this is any of indication of what these dudes are capable of, I want fucking more. Here's to praying for another disorienting sludge-monster from another world....

---

Originally written for brazen-haze.blogspot.com.