On No Life, demoniac local trio HUMAN BODIES follow up on their initial demo with a six song, twelve minute gut punch of grimy hardcore punk-influenced black metal insanity. The recording here is a bit better than the demo and the songwriting has improved somewhat as well. The style hearkens back to classics like DARKTHRONE but with a grinding, noisy aesthetic that’s much more in line with the modern basement show scene than just a carbon copy of something from the 1990s.

Short and not very sweet, No Life exudes a raw, ugly and downright disturbing blackened punk ethos. There are no punches pulled and no quarter given in this blasphemous and bile-filled EP. The songs, short though they may be, are extremely dynamic, especially when the tempos change up a bit on tracks like “Covenant” and “Exhibitionist”.

The winter solstice may now be behind us, but let’s not kid ourselves here: the northeast will continue to be a cold, dark and inhospitable place til pretty much April. No Life is exactly the right kind of soundtrack for the soul-sucking icy months ahead. Turn it on and rip it up!

No Life is available on cassette in a limited run of 200 copies from Caligari Records.