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I’ll never forget the first time I saw Show Me the Body. I was introduced to their music on December 19th, 2014. They were opening for Ratking, the rap group I was and still am deeply obsessed with, at the old Brooklyn Bazaar. Back when it was in a warehouse in industrial Greenpoint and had a marketplace complete with vendors, glow in the dark mini-golf, and indoor soccer. Now if you’d ever been to a Ratking show you knew damn well what to expect. They were a hip hop trio that could spark punk-rock mosh pits and I showed up ready to scrap. But I showed up early, just in time to catch the opening act. The place was already packed with bodies and I was confused as to why all these people showed up for a band neither I nor my friends had ever heard of that was opening for an already still very underground Ratking. That’s how underground Show Me the Body is.
It felt like some sort of cult gathering (see: www.corpus.nyc) and it still feels like that whenever I go to one of their shows. The energy so palpable, you feel it on your skin as if static electricity was coursing through the room. Everyone comes ready to purge every bit of aggression and pain they have inside of them. But I didn’t know that at the time and inevitably found myself in the midst of a massive pseudo-brawl emotionally unprepared. I found my way to the back of the crowd and watched in amazement as the swarm of bodies wriggled and writhed; all before the music even started. The front-man stepped out with his banjo. Yes, that’s right. Julian Cashwan Pratt, the frontman, plays banjo. Every know-it-all SMTB article loves to point out this detail, but it’s for a very good reason. His mastery of the instrument was undeniable as I watched him command the crowd’s attention with every note he played. Like the Devil and his fiddle, Julian possessed onlookers with an electric twang. Accompanying him was a bass that shook the room and a drumbeat dictated by the speed of the mosh pit it induced. I had never witnessed a chaos like that before and it was beautiful. I was hooked and have since tried to go to every show they’ve played in New York, seeing their crowds constantly grow in mass and energy. The events of that night were recorded and can be seen in the “Bone Soup” music video.
Flash forward five years later and SMTB have expanded that cult following to a national audience. They built their reputation playing DIY shows at skate parks, under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, sacred institutions like Shea Stadium and Palisades, and a boxing gym in the heart of the Financial District; just to name a few.
Along their journey they’ve promoted a space of acceptance at every one of their shows. One where it doesn’t matter who you are, what you do, who you love, or what you look like. They’ve collaborated with artists across the spectrum, experimenting with new sounds and styles of music production without taking away from their punk rock ethos. This is best reflected in their 2017 Corpus mixtape which some have deemed as sounding too much like Death Grips and to which I say fuck all that because Show Me the Body is incomparable. There’s no other hardcore punk band that can successfully work with the likes of Wiki, Dreamcrusher, Denzel Curry, Princess Nokia, and Mal Devisa or cultivate a community of musicians and fans quite like SMTB has done with their Corpus family.
Today the New York outfit releases their latest endeavor titled Dog Whistle. It’s a return to a more traditional punk sound that calls back to their previous projects such as their SMTB EP and Body War album, with heavy distorted bass riffs and barking mad vocals that cut through your soul and embed in your mind. You hear a certain poignancy in Julian’s lyrics akin to their early Yellow Kidney days that I can only describe as poetic. They’ve matured in their execution; a product of working on something as eclectic and experimental as the Corpus mixtape. Not to say their past work wasn’t already mature but with this album you get the sense of a veteran band that is aware of its own music’s role in shaping community and challenging society. Intelligently conveying its message to the listener, Dog Whistle requires the listener to pay attention.
Regarding the project, the band released this statement:
“In the midst of losing friends we strive to create a stronger community, dedicated to fight, survive, and thrive in their memory and spirit. A lot of people have said to us this is a perfect time to make a punk record. We are disgusted by this prompt. This album and our music does not belong to a political party. No authority, political movement, or side may claim the function of our music in this society. This album is personal. It is about and for the disenfranchised youth of this city, of this country, and of this earth. It is for our community and anyone who may find shelter within it.”
Each track has a visceral edge of its own that contributes to a narrative of collective mentality and an anger that can only be sourced from deeply personal experience. The breaks we get from the album’s onslaught of thrash noise come in the form of prose recited by Julian on “Animal in a Dream” and “Die for the Earth to Live”, where you’re forced to hear the importance of the front-man’s voice in both utterance and meaning. He relays these pieces with a clashing tone of deadpan authority mixed with contemplation, reflecting on the death of loved ones and instructing the listener to question the integrity of institutions. “Blood can never be paid back with security or money”, he preaches.
Previously released singles from the album such as “Camp Orchestra” and “Madonna Rocket” display the same reverence in the form of aggressive release. The former referencing Jewish orchestras formed in concentration camps and the latter stating: “All I have is family I will die with them”.
You hear Cashwan Pratt’s banjo clearest on “Arcanum” and the effect it has on the song is absolutely haunting. The listener expects a payoff, but the track waits until the very end to deliver it. It’s like you’re being hypnotized and you know you’re going to snap out of it, but you feel the ominous anxiety of not knowing when it’s going to happen. The payoff is well worth the wait.
My personal favorite off the project, “Forks and Knives”, is sure to get bodies moving during their live sets and works as a call for their audience to step the fuck up. They’re serious about their will to fight the system that’s taken so much from them and if you’re still listening, then you should be serious too. Being a member of their family means being ready to mobilize behind them.
The band blurs genres and cultures. With each musical release they mix their roots, their friends, and their influences without ever losing a sense of what they stand for or who they are. The end product is always a reflection of the marginalized in every song they write and every show they play; their audience mirrored by their music, and who best to deliver the disenfranchised voice of the underground but the marginalized youth?
Listen to Dog Whistle and judge for yourself, Show Me the Body doesn’t care about the labels you give their music. It is for them to define and for those willing to hear their story.
Keep up to date on SMTB’s upcoming tour via Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
