‘How much more of our lives must we limit, when there’s no question of means…We dance around the droning silence, To a monotonous beat…Is it right to determine a life’s worth by productivity? All shall receive, According to need’ (Critique Programme)

Illinois screamo outfit Frail Body return with their second full-length and follow-up to 2019’s A Brief Memoriam.  The sonic starting point remains consistent, but the execution feels more fully realised, more inherently ambitious.  A notably supple rhythm section provides the perfect foundation for the viscerally melodic guitar, the sense of near chaos not disguising the assured technicality on display.

Raw, at times verging on shrill, vocals fuel a sense of frantic desperation as they explore themes of loss, remembrance, and the stultifying demands of contemporary society.  And the band prove skilled judges of when to leaven this relentless urgency with flourishes of invention, cleansing cathartic eruptions, and passages of beguiling beauty, most compellingly, perhaps, on Critique Programme and Runaway.