The Body The Crying Out of Things
The Body's The Crying Out of Things arrives as a bruising, atmospherically dense statement that balances refined noise with moments of fragile melody, and critics largely agree it succeeds. Across five professional reviews the record earned a 76.8/100 consensus score, with reviewers repeatedly pointing to “Last Things”, “Removal” and “Careless and Worn” as the best songs on the album. Critics praised “Last Things” for marrying Dan Blacksberg's melancholy horn and a cybernetic rhythmic thrust to the band's sludge roots, while “Careless and Worn” and “Removal” were singled out for tribal horns, cracked vocals and aching intensity that convert trauma into catharsis.
The critical consensus highlights recurring themes of despair, distortion and genre hybridisation - electronics versus guitar, bleak nihilism alongside fleeting beauty - and notes how collaboration and guest contributions sharpen the record's sonic atmosphere. Reviewers consistently found the production more measured than past extremes, describing noise refinement that foregrounds panic, atmospheric dread and brief, gorgeous ruptures (a pop loop torched within seconds on “The Building” is one cited example). Some critics emphasize the album's rewards for repeated listens, where subtle shifts reveal humane textures beneath the battering.
While most reviews tilt positive, voices also acknowledge limitations: the relentless bleakness and punishing dynamics will feel divisive, and a few tracks trade force for familiarity. Still, the professional reviews coalesce around the view that The Crying Out of Things is a consequential entry in The Body's catalog, offering standout tracks and enough invention to make it worth seeking out for fans of heavy, artful discomfort. The detailed reviews below unpack how and why the record's best tracks land.
Critics' Top Tracks
The standout songs that made critics take notice
Last Things
5 mentions
"panic-attack percussion of opener Last Things"— Kerrang!
All Worries
2 mentions
"All Worries is a slowly-plunged dose of haunted thoughts and eerie, ethereal choirs"— Louder Than War
Careless and Worn
2 mentions
"Careless and Worn is a tribal slaughter of bloody battle horns blasting forth into the sky"— Louder Than War
panic-attack percussion of opener Last Things
Track Ratings
How critics rated each track, relative to this album (0-100). Only tracks that made critics feel something are rated.
Last Things
Removal
Careless and Worn
A Premonition
Less Meaning
The Citadel Unconquered
End of Line
The Building
All Worries
What Critics Are Saying
Deep insights from 6 critics who reviewed this album
Critic's Take
The Body return on The Crying Out of Things with a record where the best songs - “Last Things” and “Careless and Worn” - distill their refined noise into terrifyingly beautiful anthems. The review revels in how “Last Things” knocks noise into an impossible rhythmic cyber drive while “Careless and Worn” blasts tribal horns and cracked vocals into molten ruin, making them the album's clearest highpoints. The tone remains admiring and vivid, arguing these tracks show The Body perfecting and harnessing noise rather than merely indulging in it. Overall, the critic frames the album as a floodgate of boiled traumas and inventive textures, so listeners searching for the best songs on The Crying Out of Things should start with those two tracks.
Key Points
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The best song is driven by tight, imaginative noise design that turns chaos into rhythmic propulsion, especially on "Last Things".
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The album's core strengths are its refined noise textures, collaborative flourishes, and evocative atmospheres that externalise trauma.
Themes
Critic's Take
The Body feel like they are reshaping themselves on The Crying Out of Things, with the best tracks - particularly “Last Things” and “Removal” - laying bare a new, aching intensity. The reviewer's voice is attentive to small shifts, noting how “Last Things” reframes familiar brutality as uneasy tenderness, while “Removal” acts as a clear, lingering centerpiece. This is an album where the best songs reveal the band reworking their palette, carving out moments both bleak and unexpectedly humane. The result is an album that rewards repeated listens for its nuanced, often startling turns.
Key Points
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The best song, "Last Things," reframes The Body's brutality into aching tenderness.
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The album's core strength is subtle evolution, blending bleakness with fragile humanity.
Critic's Take
The Body’s The Crying Out of Things keeps the band’s brutal DNA while flirting with melody, and the best songs - notably “Last Things” and “The Building” - show why. The reviewer lingers on Dan Blacksberg’s melancholy horn on “Last Things”, which elevates the opener beyond mere sludge. Equally, the astonishing ten-second passage in “The Building” where a poppy loop briefly emerges before being torched is described as both gorgeous and ruinous. This album rewards listeners who want heavy music that still makes room for fragile, fleeting beauty.
Key Points
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“The Building”’s brief melodic passage is the album’s most striking moment because it contrasts and intensifies the surrounding violence.
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The album’s core strength is fusing brutal sludge with fragile melodic moments and collaborative textures to deepen its emotional impact.
Themes
Critic's Take
The Body keep making an exquisite nuisance of themselves on The Crying Out of Things, where the best songs - notably “Last Things” and “End of Line” - show them at their most overwhelming and vital. Dom writes with weary admiration, praising the visceral walls of distortion and Chip King’s trademark squall while also noting the quieter electronic tracks that let the band breathe. The record’s tension between oppressive guitar noise and considered electronics makes clear which are the best tracks on The Crying Out of Things, the sludge-led moments feeling like the band’s true métier. It is a tour de force in discomfort, even if it does not always play to their strengths.
Key Points
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The best song(s) are the sludge-led tracks like "Last Things" because their overwhelming distortion and King’s vocals deliver the album’s most visceral moments.
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The album’s core strength is the tension between oppressive guitar noise and considered electronics, creating a tapestry of discomfort.
Themes
Critic's Take
The Body sound utterly unflinching on The Crying Out Of Things, a nine-track plunge where the best songs - notably “Last Things” and “Removal” - set the tone with panic-attack percussion and numbed, robotic synths. Sam Law's voice frames the record as relentless, noting how tracks like “A Premonition” and “End Of The Line” twist post-rock and rhythmic churn into stories of ghosts in the machine and habits unbroken. The review leans into bleakness as a deliberate strength, praising the album's terrifying authenticity amid contemporary political dread. This is not comfort music, it is a brilliantly punishing, mercilessly tuned encounter that rewards those seeking the best tracks on The Crying Out Of Things for their uncompromising intensity.
Key Points
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The opener “Last Things” is best for setting the album's panic-driven, relentless tone.
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The album's core strengths are its oppressive atmosphere, authentic political dread, and fine-tuned sonic terror.