Show Me the Body - Corpus I

Pitchfork 60

Show Me the Body’s new release, Corpus I, opens with a terse, comically vague directive, sneered by an anonymous New Yorker—or, perhaps, by the city itself. “I don’t give a fuck what you do with this—just do whatever,” the man barks, “Don’t fucking make excuses: Just do what you know how to do.” This intro provides a facsimile for the born-and-bred Queens trio’s broader creative essence: crass, off-the-cuff proceedings, shaped by five years of sweat, spit, and especially subway steam. New York bands like this are getting harder to find as the gears of gentrification rumble on. But Show Me the Body are DIY stalwarts, and they rise to the city’s challenges. Their music subverts hardcore’s sonic cornerstones—swapping guitars for banjos, substituting gang vocals with gruff half-raps—while holding its core values sacrosanct: directness, aggression, anti-authoritarianism, community, and most importantly, inclusivity. If a venue isn’t all-ages, Show Me the Body will likely take their business elsewhere.

If you pitch a big tent, people will come; if you throw a stylistically-amorphous rager under it, that audience may well grow. Considering how Show Me the Body’s debut album, last June’s Body War, managed to render chaos so catchy, the trio’s recent crossover—illustrated by their unlikely confirmation for this year’s Coachella, the proceeds from which the band plans to donate to charity—should come as little surprise. But Show Me the Body aren’t ones to bask in the spotlight. They’re passing it off to their peers with Corpus I, a 17-track “collaborative mixtape” created alongside their extended creative family in New York and beyond.

Corpus I is a fiery, hopscotching roll-call spanning nearly every subdivision of the experimental vanguard: showstopping vocalists Eartheater and Mal Devisa; a bevy of left-of-center MCs, including Cities Aviv, Blunt Fang, Denzel Curry, and Princess Nokia; a host of meme-steeped rappers and producers (Yo Chill, Babyglock, Tony Seltzer). Best of all are appearances from noise auteurs Dreamcrusher and Moor Mother, whose glitched palettes draw out Show Me the Body’s subterranean din better than a mosh pit ever could. The band are gracious hosts, constantly propping up podiums for their guests–a stomping backbeat here, some freewheeling axework there–and backing away, letting them do the heavy lifting.

The all-star oddball cast hold up their end of the bargain, for the most part. A punk posse cut of sorts, Corpus I highlight “In a Grave” finds Show Me the Body conducting a thrilling cipher in a hazardous basement. After some hooted braggadocio from frontman Julian Cashwan Pratt—whose vocals once again resemble Anthony Kiedis rapping with peanut butter stuck to the roof of his mouth, for better or worse—Curry and Eartheater swoop in to breathe some life into the skittering, chrome-laden beat, before spoken-word titan Moor Mother enters the frame. “I keep telling you, I keep saying, B/But you don’t hear me because you’re here to kill me,” she sulks with teeth bared, before striking a bargain: “Well, let me finish my verse.”

The other group efforts don’t fare so well. “Why you lying” and “Cyba Slam fif world dance party (Uppa echelon dance remix)” resemble insufferable post-internet Jock Jams. Meanwhile, “My Whole Family” fails to derive any frisson from an otherwise sturdy pit machine comprising four punk singers (Pratt, Skunk Rott, Chris Wilson, and Pierre Botardo). Show Me the Body’s aims here are admirable and ballsy—namely, their attempts to find common ground between disparate styles, scenes, and perspectives and introduce their expanding fanbase to a formidable roster of lesser-known peers. But the execution of Corpus I is too scattershot to ensure a knockout.