Body Void return with their fourth studio album, Atrocity Machine, a six track behemoth.
Their second full-length to be released under the Prosthetic Records banner was recorded with Uniform’s Ben Greenberg (Portrayal of Guilt, VR Sex, Soft Kill) in January 2023.
Their typically morose view of the world hasn’t lightened any since the release of 2021’s critically acclaimed Bury Me Beneath This Rotting Earth, although Atrocity Machine embraces absurdity on a new level – as an effective communication device or a coping mechanism, who can tell? The subject matter in hand takes stock of the oppressive systems and societal functions that continually degrade the lives of millions as they passively become a cog in the very machine that subjugates them. Police violence is the thematic centre of the unravelling horror on Atrocity Machine, highlighted specifically on the track Cop Show which details the commercialisation of fear and violence being turned into a spectacle.
The grotesque reality of living in a capitalist landscape, with the value of human life decreasing daily provides infinite fuel for anxiety and trauma. The lurid tones of modern day news media are the backdrop to an Akira-inspired encounter with divine violence, Atrocity Machine offers a cosmic view of living under such systems of oppression. Specifically that the status quo can’t last forever; a self-destructive society will indeed eventually destroy itself.
The suffocating nature of oppression seeps into the sound of Atrocity Machine too. Although still a doom band at its core, Body Void in 2023 has expanded to incorporate dexterous layers of synths, samples and noise that makes their industrial-sludge sonic emissions as asphyxiating as the likes of Wolf Eyes and Pharmakon. The band credit Greenberg with bringing their electronic elements into a cohesive sound that embraces heaviness and claustrophobic chaos in equal measure.
Artwork is thematically on point – inspired by Tetsuo: The Iron Man (a person becoming a machine) – and created by Ethan Lee McCarthy. Marking a shift from their previously black-and-white-only artwork, Atrocity Machine is both visually and sonically drawing a line in the sand, delineating the beginning of a new chapter for Body Void.
Atrocity Machine was produced, engineered, mixed by Ben Greenberg at Applehead Studios, Woodstock, NY and Circular Ruin Studios, New York City, NY and mastered by Brad Boatright.
Atrocity Machine will be released via Prosthetic Records on October 13, 2023
Body Void is:
Willow Ryan (guitar, bass, synths, vocals)
Janys-Iren Faughn (electronics, samples, live bass)
Edward Holgerson (drums)