HUMAN BODIES/LEATHER CHALICE Split 7″ Review + Full Stream

Next up in the slew of reviews CVLT Nation always has in order to satiate the hunger of your ears is a split EP from two of the sickest up-and-coming bands from this universe. We gave you a little time to digest the bile spewed into your head with the stream before slapping you with this review. Enter the leather mask sporting trio Human Bodies and the monstrously fuzzy duo Leather Chalice. Leather Chalice is from New Hampshire and Human Bodies is from Boston, MA. All I know is that something must be in the water up there in New England, because I can’t believe how much gets pushed out of there musically. I can only imagine the intimidation a new band is faced with in such a successful scene. Luckily, both these acts don’t need any type of lengthy introduction because all their music makes the best first impression it can.

Labels: Broken Limbs Recordings // Prison Tatt Records

Human Bodies starts the split with two songs, titled “Only The Sigh” and “Malice Prepense” respectively. They are two songs with absolutely no chill whatsoever. Rocketing into what you may call a starting point, but what I call a tornado, “Only The Sigh” begins with such a gnawing bassline that it’s almost inhumane. Vocals akin to that of wraiths haunting graveyards darting in and out of focus over thrash laden black-influenced crust makes it so you’re looking over your shoulder as that sense of being watched starts drilling its way into your shoulder. The nervousness creeps along your spine two fingers at a time, and the vocals keep whispering screeches into your ear and the fingers on the fretboard caress your airway shut after the knot in your throat grows exponentially as one big spout of slamming drifts out of the song.

You wish it were the end, but you’re still choking on words and gasping for air as the feedback rolls over into the slow-starting “Malice Prepense.” The ghastly shrieks of gnawing feedback grill your tender brain before the hauntingly distorted shrieks rise and pass through the false trees in the forest of instrumentation these folks build up. Repetitive riffs have never looked better as they slide and slither their way into your favorite niche of music, just like on the cover, before sealing the deal on their side.

Cover art for the Split EP from Human Bodies and Leather Chalice

“Good Intentions (Coming Home Part One)” begins with quite the melancholy guitar work. Black-metal gasps of shrieks make it so that lo-fi, fuzzrocious approach becomes a refined taste of culture and delving deep into music’s core. An exposé of emotions regarding having to go home squirm their way around your heart, making you feel the sadness and disappointment, the small bouts of self-directed anger, and then a dive into what I’m certain is despair over having to be surrounded with people you left in the first place.

As that song closes out in one clipped mute, “Last Gifts Of Worship (Coming Home Part Two)” grits its rotten teeth in ferocity as it rips out a solid riffing and drum competition. Competing for shorthanded attention at home as you try and scream out over the hardships of life facing you in your youth, you must brood and suffer and feel the pain. This is shown downright fucking perfectly in these songs as the short bouts of energy that gets drained so frequently in a house so dismal inside of your mind. The dread running cold deep within your veins as feigning care and desire to be present consumes all of your thoughts and focus, before a noisy and dissonant break that is symbolic in my mind of the creeping thoughts in your mind that want you out of these shitty situations with the people you’ve no choice in having.