Review Summary: Like oil on water
The latest trend in music is collaborative records, and multiple outfits have begun making them at twice or more the rate of their “one-band” albums.
Thou,
Sumac, and especially
Full of Hell and The Body have stretched their tentacled fingers wide in finding collaborators beyond the occasional noisy works with
Merzbow and delved into shoegaze and folk music as further symbiotic pairings. The results are expectedly hit-and-miss, with some uncertain chemistry becoming monoliths of newly harvested sonic combinations, and others that seem like meshable falling rather flat. It seems that, like with colors and frequencies, sometimes things too near each other in flavor tend to grate against each other and cause unpleasant dissonance where one might expect harmony. On the outset it feels like The Body and Intensive Care would be a great match. The Body are like a plodding electronic beast roaming the countryside spreading misery, whereas Intensive Care are a more hardcore-influenced sludge monstrosity with feet dipped in power electronics and harsh noise. Their combined might should be like an adorned war elephant being ridden across fields of enemies, but instead feels more like a malfunctioning Gundam; still lurching along but sometimes not quite connecting at the cerebellum.
With collaboration in this kind of experimental and heavy music, it’s ideal for both participants to sort of meld into one another and disappear into a new unified identity. The best of these efforts don’t just particle-smash the two individual groups together and hoping the resulting Frankenstein can stand and speak, but through weaving together aspects of both into something that couldn’t be recreated by any one party involved. Unfortunately, with
Was I Good Enough? the existential question becomes ironic, falling more into the former Hadron collider category, and the opening track “Mistakes Were Made” only adds to the disappointment on the back of the tongue. Immediately kicking off with a blown-out, dirt-spraying riff and Chip King’s unique ghostly wail, it already feels purely like a outtake from Body sessions until Andrew Nolan or Ryan Bloomer (not sure which) enters with a commanding bark, spittling the title while Chip continues to howl. The sense is immediately dissociating, like an unexpected vocal feature rather than a true collaboration, when all of a sudden it ends and slips quickly and rather unceremoniously into the next track.
That’s unfortunately a pattern with
Was I Good Enough? is a near-total lack of cohesion between its moving parts. Like two waves cresting at uncomfortably different speeds, it feels like every few minutes there’s a hint of what glowing brilliance could come of this if there were just a few more stitches thrown in here and there. None of the tracks dwell very long to establish identity, and end quickly before clinging to the ear. “At Death’s Door” utilizes the bulldozer riffs of Lee Buford against Intensive Care’s swelling electronic swirls before abruptly cutting away at the half to erode into sparse backstreet warbling. The Body and Intensive Care don’t seem at odds, necessarily, but definitely end up that way just by nature of their sounds–like oil and water. The most full-sounding parts of the record are the sections where one side is allowed to take the forefront and pull the sound away from center more towards their original selves. To their credit both outfits twist and turn themselves at every angle to try and force their odd shapes together, but apparently inevitably end up popping apart. With “The Riderless Mount” the two almost seem to switch places, opening with the dark phasery dub and shouts of Intensive Care before exploding outward into another earth-grinding riff and Chip shrieks. The pieces are all there, but it’s like a child's cut and paste rather than a complex mosaic. Never does the murk congeal into something distinct, only swirls in a muddy mass that is often forgettable and directionless.
Ultimately, both The Body and Intensive Care have done better collaborations elsewhere, yet I would also hate to discourage this sort of group project and the encouragement of the communal nature of music. Undoubtedly both parties enjoyed creating
Was I Good Enough? to release it to the public with their names across it; clearly there was effort and love involved here. Unfortunately the industrial sludge of The Body mixed with filthy DJ work of Canadians Intensive Care is a taste apparently best enjoyed in small bites.
