For over three decades, Body Count has seamlessly blended hip-hop and heavy metal like few other acts since. Ice-T's socially conscious, street-smart lyrics over a thrash metal-appreciating backdrop helped to usher in nu metal years before a certain Bakersfield-based act flipped their R on its y-axis. Their 21st century resurgence has seen the band earn two Grammy nominations and one Grammy win, the latter for the blistering “Bum-Rush” from their 2020 record Carnivore. While that album, the band's seventh studio LP, seemed to be the band at their peak, they may have outdone themselves with their newest work, Merciless. With a host of guest appearances, a surprisingly stellar reimagining of a rock classic, and a commanding delivery by Ice-T, Body Count found a way to improve on excellence.
The band have a long-standing love for Slayer, having covered “Raining Blood” and “Postmortem” on their Bloodlust album, and no track on this release embodies that love more than “The Purge,” which features George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher of Cannibal Corpse. After the half-time, deliberate pacing of the title track, “The Purge” comes barrelling down the midway, complete with a guitar solo that could be mistaken for one from Jeff Hanneman if the listener isn't paying close enough attention. “Psychopath” follows with a more prominent groove, but no less heaviness, particularly during Joe Bad's section, in which he name-drops his own band Fit for an Autopsy.
The guest appearances keep coming with “Live Forever” featuring Howard Jones (ex-Killswitch Engage, Devil You Know), and with a melodic chorus, it feels for a brief second like Killswitch Engage is back, albeit with a nu metal edge that flies in the face of their metalcore roots. “Drug Lords” features Max Cavalera, and again, the band adapts to their guest's wheelhouse, as this sounds like a track that could have found itself on either Chaos A.D. or even Soulfly's self-titled album. In any case, Body Count is a metal band first and foremost, but their ability to tweak their time-tested formula as needed helps to keep things fresh.
Perhaps the most divisive and surprising song here is the band's take on Pink Floyd's “Comfortably Numb.” A thrash metal band with a rapping frontman taking on a prog-rock classic, perhaps the prog-rock classic, seems like the most left-field of pitches, but between Pink Floyd's own David Gilmour playing on the track and Ice-T's calmer but still attention-grabbing vocal delivery of his own lyrics for the song, it works. Not since their take on Suicidal Tendencies’ “Institutionalized” a decade ago has their one cover per album been such a home run.
To take the baseball analogy and run with it, this album is a grand slam. Body Count is a band that is only getting better with age, raising their own bar with every outing. Those who only know Ice-T as Detective Tutuola from Law and Order: SVU need to remedy that immediately, and do so with this excellent record.
Merciless is available now via Century Media Records.
