I still have fond memories of the one and only time I’ve seen The Body live. The local promoter had a hard time finding a venue that would accommodate their awesome amplitude, and they ended up being double-booked with some indie-rock band at The Shop, a pre-fabricated Parkdale punk-rock dive. After the respective local openers (a not-nearly-as-loud garage rock duo followed by some lame-o mustachioed indie pop outfit) did their thing, The Body took the stage—or rather the rug at the end of the room.
Let’s just say it was only a matter of milliseconds before they had all the hipsters hurrying for the exits… or at least the trendy poutine nouveau restaurant upstairs. Hell, they even managed to knock out the power at one point. If you can believe it, all of Chip King’s amps were running through an extension chord plugged into the wall, so it was bound to happen sooner or later.
Suffice to say, I didn’t stick around for whoever was headlining that shitshow; but in a way, this split EP kinda reminds me of that gig. On the one hand, you’ve got The Body doing what they do best—a single, 16-minute serving of noisy, monolithic drone sludge, albeit with at least one pleasant piano interlude and a whole fuckton of feedback towards the end. On the other side (assuming this is available on vinyl), Sandworm provides no fewer than 10 tracks, ranging from a little over a minute to just less than two-and-a-half. OK, so they don’t play anything remotely close to indie rock—it’s basically black metal, with a punk-rock twist—but the transition is more than a little jarring, to put it mildly.
www.thrilljockey.com/thrill/The-Body/Split-LP
