Although I missed last year's Nupping, Baltimore noise-addicts Dope Body slayed me with their debut record 20 Pound Brick back in 2009. Such lurid aggression wrapped up in garage punk bursts. New album Natural History shows them redefining their sound, expanding into weird and wonderful realms in the process. It is difficult to put a finger on it - being from Baltimore, whilst an obvious, cliched touchstone, may still have something to do with it - but the fun is to be found in the abnormal elements of these relatively familiar sounds. There is nothing safe here - everything threatens to explode, implode, combust or impregnate at every visceral twist and turn. It's when the band pulls back on the reins - the dirge-like canter of opener 'Shook', the jerky trip of 'Lazy Slave', the at-odds guitar interplay on 'Twice The Life' - that the curveballs are thrown, just in time for a balltearer like 'Road Dog' comes through and rips your guts out.
Natural History is a weird and wonderful listen, full of viscera and violence, yet smeared with a heady grin. Dope Body toy with convention and win. It's out now on Drag City - pick it up and drop it here.
Dope Body - Lazy Slave
Dope Body - Weird Mirror
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