24.4. THE BODY / WEEDEATER Co Headline Show |

With each release, the duo of Lee Buford and Chip King continue to defy the constraints of what it means to be a “heavy” band, seamlessly combining composition or production approaches from hip hop, pop, classical, as well as rock and electronica resulting in a rich and utterly singular sound.

Their ambitious creativity shapes their bleak worldview into propulsive, affecting, and even danceable music often drenched in distortion. On I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer The Body challenged themselves again by turning their compositional approach on its head, choosing to build the record on their own samples rather than recording the basic tracks of drums and guitars and processing those. The results carry the listener towards the brink of emotional and musical extremes. I Have Fought Against It… conjures the sublime from an unexpected and incomparable variety of sounds.

The Body are known for their intense, abrasive live shows, whose waves of dissonance create an abiding dread or an overwhelming sense of terror. They create a volume of sound almost unfathomable from a duo and are unaffected by instrument choice: guitar and drums, or keyboard and synthesizers

For The Body, any source of inspiration is fair game to achieve their distinct atmosphere of unbearable dread, pain, and sadness. “Partly alive” places rolling drum figures, commonly found in pop, and transforms them with a backdrop of horns, skittering synthetic hi hats, and pitched feedback. The oppressive groove of “an urn” pulls beat arrangement and melodic ideas from disparate electronic influences.

thebody.bandcamp.com

Syrupy slow riffs are buoyed by canyon-deep bass and some of the hardest-hitting drumming since Keith Moon.
At its founding, Weedeater rose like a doobie phoenix out of the ashes of BUZZOV•EN. When the cult sludge act called it a day, bass player Dave “Dixie” Collins teamed up with guitarist Dave “Shep” Shepherd and founded WEEDEATER in the harbor town of Wilmington about the year 1998. Their crushing and massive first full-length ‘…and Justice for Y’all’ (2001) created an immediate buzz, while critics were struggling to put a tag on their sound.

Nearly everybody agreed that stoner rock, doom, sludge and some crusty elements were part of the mix, which the band simply calls “weed metal”. The debut was produced by renowned engineer Billy Anderson (EYEHATEGOD, NEUROSIS) as well as sophomore album ‘Sixteen Tons’ (2002). WEEDEATER went out to perform live with CORROSION OF CONFORMITY and ALABAMA THUNDERPUSSY among others.

After some detours of Dixie Dave, who played shortly with BONGZILLA and SOURVEIN, third album ‘God Luck and Good Speed’ hit the world in 2007 and shifted the band’s focus slightly towards the stoner side.

Their fourth full-length ‘Jason… the Dragon’ got delayed when guitarist Shep lost a toe due to an incident with his favourite shotgun. When the sludge driven album finally came out in 2011, shows in the US and Europe cemented the band’s reputation as a fierce live entity. After signing to Season of Mist, WEEDEATER reissued their full back-catalogue on their new label. Yet the Bible Belt state of North Carolina, USA remains a fertile ground for hemp and stoner rock.