Hardcore has become a broad term. Where once it was a much faster, aggressive, often more violent form of punk, today the genre tag can be applied to everyone from Code Orange to Scowl to Malevolence, who don’t really sound that much alike, as bands draw on the forefathers of the genre but imbibe influences outside its once rigid confines.
Brooklyn’s Show Me The Body are part of this new wave. Sure, there are swaggering NYHC sensibilities underpinning their caustic sound, but the trio’s interests reach much further than the dank dive bars of the East Coast. For one thing, they have a banjo and a synth, used to chilling effect on new album Trouble The Water, and are clearly indebted to the ’90s alt.rock scene, sludge, noise and even hip-hop. All wrapped up with a jet-black bow on top, it’s delivered with a knowing, no-fucks-given sneer, with vocalist Julian Pratt veering between slurring pub rocker and Jacob Bannon.