SOJ – Body Shaper [Soil Records]

Body Shaper is an album shows the infinite possibilities of styles such as EBM and industrial can adopt in this new era in which each author is governed by personal concepts and criteria that adapt both to technological progress and to the vast musical culture that we acquire daily. Diversity, the sum of elements renewed or derived from different genres and overall originality are the factors that have conditioned the development of this release.

The album does not follow a specific line, each track is a totally different story from the rest of the reference although, designed to be part of an ecosystem in which each organism is essential for the survival of the biological system. 

Arms On You is the track that open the A side, as first contact is a good model to evaluate the creative capacity of SOJ, with this theme is not limited to develop from a single influence, but adds contexts of various genres, which we could perfectly define as layers, to form a hybrid between industrial and dark ambient with an intense load on low frequencies and continuous metal whips. 

Bloody Moon is another archetype of the style of the album, this time SOJ advocates a more forceful argument with a compact punch and again projected in an industrial environment. Golden Seals limits the metric to a subdivided tempo in which the intensity is transferred to the deep vowels and the harmonic force of low chords and arpeggios. 

Call Me With Your Name is a peaceful passage, of constant cadence in which the dominant matter resides in the medium-severe tonal conjugations. As in the previous theme, but with much less presence, both for its higher timbre, as for its sporadic manifestations, SOJ employs again vocal, in this case female and adjusted to only locution. Im Not You is the track that closes the A side of the album, a mixture of influences worthy of analysis by compasses: background oldskool sound with a lot of groove, with eighties vocal samples, which derives from acid to an immense arpeggiated execution. 

Bobtail opens the B-side as an intro with a disturbing melody, syncopated punch, a persistent filtered voice and countless details. Morphine is the next cut, with this track SOJ returns to the formula of downtempo but here the protagonism takes more interest in the percussive part, with a buzz as a mattress is the percussion that submits the listener. 

Body Shaper stands out mainly for its organic battery and for a penetrating bass line that surprises in the second third of the work. Kull, Feck, Due is a theme with a massive sound mix in which the lowest part of the audible spectrum radiates great energy, but it’s not the only ingredient that gives off claws, in fact, the track reaches full climax when a heartbreaking looping noise appears. 

Shout is the paradigm of the unfolding of several subtly disparate waves, this treatment is continuous during almost all the route of the track and it is best appreciated when all of them are interrupted except the fundamental one. Medical Number is the last cut of the album, a magnificent work of percussive engineering elaborated almost in its totality with components of the battery. 

Release date: June 13th, 2019.