Viking's Choice: The Body, 'Hallow/Hollow'

There has not been one year since 2010's All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood that The Body has not released an album, a collaboration or a split EP. The experimental doom-metal duo is constantly evolving and learning from its previous works, and in March, it'll release two albums that represent opposite ends of The Body's spectrum. One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache is a collaboration with the noise-metal band Full Of Hell, and it is some nerve-shredding scum. At the other end is No One Deserves Happiness, The Body's first proper non-collaborative LP since 2013, with song structures and textures that the duo insists were influenced by pop music. The Body is mutating, and it's all kinds of messed-up.

"Hallow/Hollow" comes from No One Deserves Happiness, but let's be clear: This is no regular person's idea of pop music, except maybe for the creatures from a David Cronenberg movie. Chip King's blown-out guitar and shrieked vocals are a blur against Lee Buford's thunderous drums, as a trombone blasts on top of it all like a battle cry. Perhaps the pop here comes from longtime collaborator Chrissy Wolpert, singer and leader of the Assembly Of Light Choir, as she presides over the song's closing like a Gothic siren. Pop music may just be in for a rude awakening.

No One Deserves Happiness comes out March 18 on Thrill Jockey.