ABOUT BODYSNATCHER
Hell Is Here, Hell Is Home is the fourth full-length from Melbourne, FL deathcore outfit Bodysnatcher. It follows 2024’s brutal Will Putney-produced EP, Vile Conduct and serves up another powerful barrage of uncompromising deathcore across 10 incredible tracks that see the four-piece—Kyle Medina (vocals), Kyle Carter (guitar), Kyle Shope (bass) and Chris Whited (drums)—turn the catharsis up as loud and as visceral as it will go.
Of course, that’s nothing new for the band. If you’ve heard Vile Conduct, or any of the three albums that preceded it—2017’s Death of Me, 2020’s The Heavy Void or 2022’s Bleed-Abide—you’ll know this is a band who have always pitted themselves against personal tragedy, who have fought on individual levels against the dark depths of a despair (often inspired by their own experiences of death). Hell Is Here, Hell Is Home is no less harrowing.
“The band has always had roots lyrically in themes of betrayal, overcoming hardship, and moving on from things that happen in life and how to cope with them,” explains Medina. “Ever since the inception of Bodysnatcher, that was the theme. I do think, though, as the band has matured and we as people have grown, so have the ways to dig into the themes more. With more life experience, there are more things to draw from.”
Yet while this is still a viciously personal record, Hell Is Here, Hell Is Home is also a dark reflection of the world at large, and its current dystopia. It doesn’t just dwell on what’s happening, though. It lashes out at the way things are with a terrible, violent rage.
“I’d say a lot of today’s world plays into this album,” says Whited. “We really feel that listeners across the globe can find something to connect with in these songs. There’s a strong sense of retaliation this time around; it feels like choosing violence, fighting back against a world that feels morally lost right now.“
That manifests itself from the very beginning of this record, from the opener “The Maker.” A sheer assault of rage, noise, and skull-crushing riffs, it multiplies Bodysnatcher’s intensity to a degree that, even by their already intense standards, is off the charts. “'The Maker' is a raw, visceral song,” says Shope. “Bodysnatcher has always been known for unrelenting heaviness, but ‘The Maker’ seems to be an even darker, more intense direction. Revenge and retaliation are themes we often use in our lyrics, however ‘The Maker’ is a more direct approach. This song is as heavy as we could make it, and I know the energy is going to be electric when it is played live.
That direct darkness continues throughout the entirety of the next nine songs, from the unforgiving vengeance of “Writhe And Coil” and “Violent Obsession” through to the blistering defiance of “Blade Between The Teeth” and “Survive Or Die.” The latter features vocals from Scott Vogel, the frontman of hardcore legends Terror, a band very close to Bodysnatcher’s blackened heart. It follows the previous impressive cameo on Vile Conduct by Hatebreed’s Jamey Jasta.
“Scott Vogel is such a pivotal and legendary voice in hardcore and heavy music,” says Medina. “Many of us in the band grew up listening to Terror, so having him appear on a song is huge for us in terms of morale and making the album feel even stronger. We had the idea when we were thinking of another voice come from the hardcore side of where the band draws from; we had Jasta on the previous EP, so we thought of another that is of equal stature, and were able to make it happen.”
Vogel’s appearance shows just how much of a mark Bodysnatcher have made on the scene. But it’s not distracting them from their intent and purpose. In fact, that only seems to have been refined as time has passed. One of the most obvious examples of that here is “May Your Memory Rot”, an intensely personal song full of spite, venom and trauma about somebody who was very close to Whited. “That song was written the first night we got to the studio,” says the drummer. “It was Father’s Day, which has a lot of baggage for me. I was thinking about my nephew, who lost both parents when my sister overdosed and their gang member father was murdered, and is now being raised by my mom, and my nieces, who lost their dad when my brother passed. That spiral eventually led me to someone who is, without question, one of the worst people I’ve ever known. I was lying in bed angry, so I started writing. That song is pure rage—a very direct fuck you to Mike Whited.” Yet—like the rest of this record—it’s rage with a purpose, rage full of intention, rage with hope still attached to it. Because even though it was born out of incredibly difficult circumstances, both personal and universal, Bodysnatcher’s hope is that people listening to it can find some kind of solace in it alongside all the anger and the rage.
“I won’t lie,” says Carter. “This was a hard album to put together. Every writing session was met with dead ends for months, but we were able to come out the other side with 15 demos and ended with 10 of the best songs we’ve ever made. The album is based around revenge and not bending over for people. I hope others can hear these songs and come to the same realizations we have while putting this together. Life is too short to let people walk on you or take advantage of you. Humans are monsters who betray, abuse, neglect, murder, and sometimes it feels like we’re too comfortable in the Hell that we’re in.”
