Album review: Bodysnatcher – Hell Is Here, Hell Is Home

Music possesses the unparalleled ability to elicit all manner of feelings. It can be as basic as happiness, sadness or anger, or more complex feelings of nostalgia, inspiration or introspection. Then there's Bodysnatcher’s fourth album Hell Is Here, Hell Is Home, which will leave fans feeling like they can deadlift an articulated lorry while kerb stomping God.

Let’s cut to the chase: fans of the Florida beatdown deathcore mob will love this new album. Those with an aversion to this type of extreme metal are best served to stay away. Hell Is Here… doesn't reinvent the wheel, nor does it add new elements to their repertoire, but it does show Bodysnatcher at their destructive peak by way of their most violent, diabolical and depraved sonic exercises to date.

Beyond the six-second spoken clip that opens The Maker at the top of the album, Hell Is Here… is an unrelenting, bludgeoning, blood-spattered affair. ‘Are you scared?’ vocalist Kyle Medina asks during that same track, before gang vocals answer with ‘You fucking should be’ to herald in a drove of downtuned chords and punishing rhythm. Their ability to craft crushing breakdowns gets sharper and more belligerent with each release, and the album is chock full of moments that should reduce venues to rubble.

And that's about the measure of the album: a how-to guide using sound to destroy anything in its path. The bass drop in No Savior’s breakdown feels like you're aboard an imploding submersible. Blade Between The Teeth is the exact soundtrack used in the seventh circle of Hell. May Your Memory Rot seemingly had the band swap out their instruments for chainsaws and explosives.

Hell Is Here, Hell Is Home is a monolithic album best enjoyed for what it is at its core: heavy as fuck. At a time when humans are setting new records and pushing the bounds of what's possible, Bodysnatcher is proof that not everything needs to be particularly convoluted or expansive when it does the base elements this well, and that's a beautiful thing in itself.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Despised Icon, Boundaries, Kublai Khan TX

Hell Is Here, Hell Is Home is out now via MNRK.