Master, We Perish

I can dig some of The Body's full lengths and collaborations (some of which I'd absolutely place in their main discography), but I don't really know much about their impossibly vast side discography. I jumped in at a random spot, and I'm not sure I landed in a very good place. I'm not sure I'd go as far to say that Master, We Perish flat out sucks, but it surely isn't something I'd ever want to go back to. It has all the trappings of The Body: thumping sludge guitars, experimentation, odd vocals. However, this is not a great showcase of their strengths. It sounds like something they slapped together over a weekend filled with beer and weed for shits and giggles.

The main thing that turns me off in Master, We Perish is it doesn't seem like they're really trying. It comes off like they dropped this just for the sake of releasing something. "The Ebb and Flow of Tides" is really a non-entity to me, we have a lot of noisy-non riffs, swirling distortion and the sort of yelps a dog would make if you stepped on its tail, and not much more. The dirgy cleaner tones, electronics, samples and haunting female vocals actually do make for a really great start to "The Blessed Lay Downand Writhe in Agony", but the later half of the song is boring, boring sludge with more histrionic yelps. The riffs don't deliver at all and there's not enough to make up for their nothingness. I'm always going to be a bit of a sucker for a tribal drum jam like "Worship", and I admit the bouncing psychedelic tone that weaves through much of the song is great, but they really didn't need to end with 9 minutes of this. They've done this style a fair amount in other releases, and this doesn't stand out at all. Without the drums (which really is the same beat ad nauseum), this would sound like nothing at all. The noise and vague samples are cool for like 30 seconds, but quickly overstay their welcome. The vibe is cool, but again, this is something they've done better elsewhere and is overlong.

Master, We Perish isn't really bad as much as it is unnecessary. If they had completely cut out the first song, cut out the second half of "Writhe in Agony" and kept 4 minutes of the drum jam while that psychedelic tone is bouncing around, Perish might have been a decent entry for a split. This is only 18 minutes, and still double as long as it needs to be. The Body surely have much better work, and this is an unnecessary addition to their seemingly endless discography.