There are some bands and artists that get more than their fair share of exposure in NMC and Das Body was here as recently as August. But I make no apologies for highlighting once again a band that never ceases to surprise me every time they record a new song, and one that I can’t understand why they aren’t better known in Norway and elsewhere.
They aren’t prolific record makers so two singles in two months suggests that an album is on its way to follow 2020’s excellent ‘Peregrine’, which itself seemed to take eons to make.
They’ve a penchant for cryptic, challenging song titles that defy explanation. The last one was ‘Baby you know I’m a stranger’ and this time it is ‘No love will shine on me’. They aren’t nonsense titles but they might be interpreted in several different ways. Or not at all.
I said in the previous review that I’ve never been quite able to pigeonhole Das Body’s style, their genre, call it what you will and I get no clues from this one either because in ‘No love will shine one me’ they find yet another new one, and it’s heavy, man, replete with urgency and a sense of impending doom, with what sounds like a symphony orchestra of gothic synthesisers providing the powerful main theme and darker still than most of the prior product of what is already known as a band where ethereal might be the word of the day. Every day.
It’s about as far away from the comparatively poppy melodies of the previous single as you can get, almost symphonic metal in content towards the end while somehow managing to channel the musical sentiments of Arcade Fire’s ‘Rebellion (Lies)’ in the mid-section.
As usual it is held together by the unfussy, metronomic percussion of drummer Didrik Karsrud. Another glue of course is Ellie Linden, whose desperate, almost pleading vocal style has become a mainstay of the band’s songs.
They’ve sold the forthcoming album to me on the strength of these two songs alone, so bring it on please. Like, before the world explodes.
But what have they done to our Ellie? She’s unrecognisable. Last time they stretched her neck out to rival ET’s and now they’ve made her look like a football hooligan in a mug shot taken down at Oslo’s central nick, just after she’s snorted a line.
That’s no way to treat Norway’s prettiest beanpole! I’m going to start the ‘Free Ellie!’ movement right now.
Find them on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dasbody
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dasbody
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/das_body/
