29. Frail Body - "Artificial Bouquet"

Another album where it is quite hard to describe and actualise what this band is doing. It flirts across infinite genres, never feeling able to commit wholesale to any. It successfully blurs between the different forms of extremity and heaviness. There are passages where you would swear this is black metal but then it instantaneously morphs into something more melodic and fragile. Then we are swept into fammoths of post-hardcore, full of lingering regret and desolate longing. And then explodes in a frantic exposition of blistering screamo, full of molten angst and anger. And then it wanders off again to find yet another musical form to fearlessly poke with its blunt stick.

Put simply what Frail Body are doing is both fearless and peerless. It pushes boundaries like I have never seen before. It twists and contorts convention with conviction and a confident stride. Bolstered by brave bravado, this is an album that doesn’t just contravene the rules, it brazenly ignores they even exist.