BODY VOID has today shared a new track, titled Cop Show, alongside an accompanying music video. Cop Show is the second single to be taken from the New England via Bay Area based doom trio's upcoming fourth album, Atrocity Machine, which is due for release via Prosthetic Records on October 13. The song sees BODY VOID pulling influence from the dystopian sci-fi film Robocop, and serves as a critique on police violence.
WATCH THE LYRIC VIDEO FOR COP SHOW BELOW
Stream Cop Show via Apple Music | TIDAL | Deezer | Bandcamp and Spotify
Pre-order Atrocity Machine here.
Speaking on the single, Willow Ryan (guitar, bass, synths, vocals) comments: "Cop Show lyrically might be the most specific on the album. It focuses on the way in which police violence, in place of abolition or even just reform, we’ve turned killings and assaults into a spectacle to be consumed and entertained by. Paul Verhoven’s brand of dystopian absurdity was a big influence on Atrocity Machine as a whole, but especially on this song with Robocop."
BODY VOID's 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. 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 an asphyxiating listening experience. The band credit producer Ben Greenberg (Portrayal of Guilt, VR Sex, Soft Kill) 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.