The Body – No One Deserves Happiness (Review)

This is the fifth album from US Sludge band The Body.

This is a complex album with a multifaceted, layered sound. The Body are not your average band and consequently No One Deserves Happiness is not your average album.

Industrial Sludge Metal is an apt description of the band’s output, although this barely describes the monstrous creation that the band have unleashed on the world with this work.

Electronics and Metal meet in a way that is fused at the very core of the music, revealing a collaboration that you might never think possible. Certainly it’s out of reach of the talent of most bands who attempt to combine electronics and guitars.

This is an album full of bleakness, isolation and despair. The sense of melancholy and hateful abandonment is strong, with the music absolutely reeking of complex negative emotions and the utter failure of all human contact.

Harsh, needle-thin vocals are sometimes joined by ethereal female cleans, which ratchet up the emotional content to almost unbearable levels.

This is a hard album to describe in many ways; although there is a massive amount of things going on here, it’s more the emotional resonance of the music that’s difficult. No One Deserves Happiness seems to easily and swiftly evoke all of the feelings of negativity, discomfort and nostalgic loss that you’ve experienced your entire life. It’s an extremely powerful listen because of this and at the end of its 48 minute journey you feel hollow and spent.

After listening to this, it’s hard to disagree with the album name.