“Fentanyl made me an only child.”
Bodysnatcher have built a career out of pairing cataclysmic deathcore with raw, ruthless lyrics. But this line is, by far, the most savage and personally devastating in the Florida outfit’s entire discography.
Sitting at the heart of “Murder8,” the Jamey Jasta-featuring gut punch from the band’s new EP Vile Conduct, these are six words born from a real-life nightmare that drummer Chris Whited has lived through the past two years. In April 2022, he lost his older brother to an opioid overdose, and one year later, Whited’s younger sister succumbed to the same tragic fate.
“It is quite intimidating to write things that are personal to us,” Whited admits. “But when people come up to us at shows and say they haven’t heard a song that has connected with them in that way before, it makes it even more genuine. We play big dumb-guy heavy music, but then we offer something that people might not expect to get from something so extreme. That’s a really cool place to be.”
Despite such a heartbreaking path to get here, Bodysnatcher find themselves at an increasingly pivotal, even hopeful, moment in their career. Over the last decade, and across three full-lengths, the band have been refining their approach as they cherry-pick from all their favorite parts of heavy music — every era of hardcore, metalcore and, most prominently, deathcore — and collectively write lyrics that come from personal experience rather than abstract imagination. It’s all here in some form, from broken homes to broken hearts. The result is a different level of aggression, channeled through the unpredictable and unrelenting reality of the everyday.
And people are taking notice. Bodysnatcher are rapidly approaching a quarter of a million monthly listeners on Spotify. Match that with playing shows with Spite, Shadow of Intent and Lorna Shore, and they are placing themselves front and center of the current deathcore renaissance. A band to believe in, Bodysnatcher are combining genuine heart, unmistakable hurt and undeniable heaviness — bigger, bolder and better than everyone else.
“We listen to a lot of bands cut from the same cloth, the early Aughts and Nineties hardcore bands where it was all about overcoming hardship,” says vocalist Kyle Medina of their influences. “Hatebreed and Terror have stuck around for so long because they have something to cling to. They are speaking about genuine things — and when you have the same [sentiments] in your own arsenal, it definitely helps.”
This realness — from Whited’s grief to other members’ experiences with heartbreak and hardship — directly informed Vile Conduct. The new EP ramps up the debauched extreme-metal grit of their prior full-length, 2022’s Bleed-Abide, and serves as both an outlet for their personal anguish and a platform from which to spew their disdain for the predators and profiteers that trade and relish in pure human suffering. The EP is punishing, powerful and poignant and will stick with you long after the last bruising, steel-toe-capped breakdown has faded away.
“Vile Conduct is about people being fucked up and people being shitty,” Whited explains. “No matter where you are in life, there are always going to be shitty people who do shitty things, and there’s nothing you can do about it. They run everything. Everything is based on greed, and if a profit is made, they will make it, no matter the consequence.”
From the unrelenting darkness of “Infested,” written about guitarist Kyle Carter’s battle with depression, to the tear-stained devastation of “Say Goodbye,” a damning callout to “the cancer industry” framed through a conversation Carter had with his mother when she was re-diagnosed and given just months to live — these aren’t easy listens by any means.
Throw in “Confession,” a track that includes snippets from a call made to Whited by the person who sold his brother the fentanyl that he overdosed on — someone who was considered to be one of his brother’s best friends — and Vile Conduct becomes even more crushing.
In the past, Bodysnatcher’s music would usually provide a glimmer of hope peeking through the gray clouds, a reminder that you can persevere — but no such light appears here. There is no answer to what they have been through, and that’s OK. More than anything, their current mission is to let people know that they aren’t alone in their sorrow.
“If a band gives an ‘answer,’” says Whited, “the answer is never going to be the same for everyone…”
“Life is unpredictable,” Medina interjects.
“We are just here to express real-life feelings from real-life things,” continues Whited. “They happen to everyone else, too, and we want people to know that they don’t need to hide it. Everybody goes through it: You’re not the only one, and it’s OK.”