Body Type - Expired Candy (2023) [Official Digital Download 24/48]

If Body Type’s debut record Everything Is Dangerous But Nothing's Surprising (2022) was an exuberant and furious declaration of dominion, then their swift follow-up Expired Candy is all about reveling in the space they’ve carved out. This is a euphoric, lawless rock record, characterised by unfaltering intensity. Oceanic yearning mixes with sly humour. Guitars spit and swell and slice through harmonies. Moments of elation and bizarre imagery are wrung from the monotony of every day. Vocals knot together, producing ecstatic, slanted melodies. Expired Candy is an album about not being so certain that confinement and desolation lead to a dead end. Instead, stagnation may serve as the perfect breeding ground for joyous bewilderment and an inflamed imagination. Like the stale confection of its title, Expired Candy contains sweetness, but is also acidic, strange, tough, and undeniable in its jagged pleasures.

The album was written over two years, some of which saw the band (comprised of Sophie McComish, Annabel Blackman, Cecil Coleman and Georgia Wilkinson-Derums) separated during the pandemic, with bits of songs passed back and forth across strict state borders. The production of the album, meanwhile, occurred quickly, with the majority of the recording sandwiched between a recent national tour with indie-rock icons The Pixies. They collaborated again with Jonathan Boulet, who recorded and mastered the record.

Expired Candy is such a blistering listen because of the way it transmutes gloom into resistance. The lead single “Miss the World” is a pummelling lament, concerned with citizens’ unquestioning compliance and the ascent of tyrants, told through pre-teen anarchists, bichon frises, and a drum beat based on a Gwen Stefani song. “Holding On” is a soaring, rollicking track where the protagonist’s longing and messy, “monsoon” emotions are kept afloat by friends and the aphorisms passed down by family members. With wry melancholy and an abundance of ‘ahhhs’ “Creation of Man” dissects the self-involved male artist and his forceful allure.

Desire gets a 360 view here, with the band racing through all the agonies and emotions one can experience while in the thick of romance. There are its all-consuming, suspended thrills ( the jubilant shredding of “Weekend”), its fun frivolities (the garage-punk cheek of “Anti-Romancer”), and its illusions and dependencies (the mournful, slow-burn of “Beat You Up”). On Expired Candy, the band takes more risks than ever before, bending and layering their yelping, cooing vocals. Their touchstones are more varied too; with the band swerving in and out of Tom Petty-inspired hooks, post-punk absurdity, Fleetwood Mac-style arrangements, and Libertines-reminiscent racket.

While their sound has expanded, their themes have shrunk - to clear-eyed, bracing effect. Memory and nostalgia are interrogated through small, specific moments. The staunch title track “Expired Candy” is about the bliss of the banal, ageing and watching television. “Albion Park” surveys suburban detritus, speeding, and the eruptive power of teenage impatience. The album closes with “Shake Yer Memory”, a scabrous pop song, which ruminates on the non-linear quality of reverie, and how self-reflection can often lapse into mythology. Despite the passage of time and the dimming of memories, the smell of laundry, the sight of a double rainbow, and an ex-love interest’s masochist drinking habits pop up in the present haphazardly.

Since the release of their much-anticipated debut record last year, the band has amassed further acclaim. Everything Is Dangerous But Nothing's Surprising has been shortlisted for the prestigious Australian Music Prize and was nominated for ‘Record of the Year’ at the FBI Smac Awards. They have played in support of Fontaines D.C, Wolf Alice and The Pixies, the latter of which involved performances at the Opera House steps in Sydney. The band will return to Europe and UK this June, performing at Roskilde Festival, among their own headline shows.

Tracklist:
01. Holding On
02. Summer Forever
03. Weekend
04. Tread Overhead
05. Sha La La
06. Creation Of Man
07. Miss The World
08. Anti-Romancer
09. Beat You Up
10. Albion Park
11. Expired Candy
12. Dream Girls
13. Shake Yer Memory


Thanks to the Original customer!