Body Count
Merciless
Sony/Century Media
There’s something uniquely visceral about a Body Count album. They have always been brutal and uncompromising, but at the same time cathartic. Here that trademark continues but with added weight courtesy of some stellar guests such as George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher from Cannibal Corpse on ‘The Purge’, a celebration of the film series. We also get a wonderful reimagining of Pink Floyd’s ‘Comfortably Numb’ which has none other than David Gilmore himself on guitar. What an endorsement that is! ‘Can we use your song?’, ‘Hell I want to play on it!’ The fact that it fits so seamlessly into ‘Merciless’ shows off to a tee just how talented the musicians are in Body Count. This is after all very much a band. Ice T can convey pissed off like no other. In him we recognise our own anger and frustration at the world around us. And that is key to the music being a release, a safety valve, an escape. In making music the way they do Body Count could actually be helping to reduce body counts. So there we have it, a band and an album performing a public service. It just happens to be a slice of heavy heaven too.
Review by Gary Trueman