Album/EP

Body Count - Bloodlust (Album Review)

Walladmin

Heavy Metal Wordsmith

/10

Apr 3, 2017

7 min read

Body Count – Bloodlust

Released: 31st March 2017

Online

Facebook: Body Count

Twitter: Body Count

There goes the neighbourhood, again … Ice, Ernie C and the rest of the Body Count crew are back, dropping a brand new album containing some old themes. With anger and rage at the top of the agenda, this is a crushingly heavy album of honest brutality. The black humour present on previous Body Count releases is gone. There’s nothing tongue in cheek on Bloodlust and it’s an angry album for angry times.

Kicking off with 'Civil War', Ice gets right down to it. This isn’t a history lesson of North verses South, but a biting commentary on today’s America. Megadeth front man, (and someone who’s not afraid to cause controversy) Dave Mustaine is called on to assist with a spoken word intro and some blistering guitar. The song is haunting, dark and brutal as fuck! Ice sounds a warning with, “the public is armed, and ready to die/there’s guns on the streets, it’s already too late.” This track sets the tone for the rest of the album.

It continues with ‘The Ski Mask Way’. Previously, Body Count’s lyrics contained dark and sometimes twisted humour, but there’s nothing amusing about this song. Clocking in at a little over 3 minutes, it’ the prefect length for radio play, but I doubt there’s a commercial radio station on the planet that will give it a run. In fact, if this track was released in 1992 it would have probably joined the infamous ‘Cop Killer’ on the banned list. But this is 2017, we’ve grown up and moved on and so it takes a lot to get a song banned these days. Having said that, 25 years after the release of the debut album its seems not much has changed. Racism is rife, cops are killing civilians, civilians are killing cops and civilians are killing each other. The world of Ice T’s beloved South Central has spread across America.

So, if we haven’t moved on at all, neither has Ice. He’s just gotten angrier. Lyrically, this latest Body Count album is the best yet, a no-holds barred Louisville Slugger to the face. The bat is swung with devastating precision on ‘No Lives Matter.’ If you’re a white boy from the suburbs this is uncomfortable listening, but that’s the point.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlk7o5T56iw&w=853&h=480]

Ice and his homies aren’t walking the mean streets alone, with the aforementioned DaveMustaine, MaxCavalera and RandyBlythe signed up to help out with two of the heaviest tracks on the album: ‘All Love Is Lost’ and ‘Walk With Me’, forever burying the ridiculous notion that rap and metal doesn’t mix. BodyCount combine biting lyrical commentary of old school rap with speed, precision and power of some of the heaviest metal you’re likely to hear this year… or any year.

This album has a powerful anti-racism message delivered in the only way Body Count can, with stark, brutal honesty. Body Count is in the house so grab a flak jacket. You’re gonna need it.

Bloodlust gets 9 ½ dead gangbangers out of 10.

Reviewed by Gareth Williams