Body Type share stern new single ‘The Charm’ ahead of debut LP

April 29 2022

EVERYTHING IS DANGEROUS BUT NOTHING’S SURPRISING LP OUT MAY 20 VIA POISON CITY RECORDS

Photo by Jack Saltmiras
PRAISE FOR BODY TYPE

“Breathes new life into garage rock”
The FADER

“Fascinating, endlessly creative”
CLASH

“Refreshingly exciting and ridiculously good fun”
The Line of Best Fit

“Their self-titled EP is really a masterclass in lines that creep up on you and resonate”
NME

“It’s impossible not to fall head over heels for them”
DIY

Today, feminist rock group Body Type share the latest cut from their highly anticipated debut album, ‘The Charm‘, an assertive call to stand one’s ground. LISTEN + WATCH HERE.

With the match lit for Body Type‘s forthcoming debut album, ‘The Charm‘ sees the band snatch back the reins for themselves. Vocalist Sophie McComish shares, “This track is about how women are held to higher standards than men in the music biz. It’s harder for us to get away with being a bit shit or making mistakes. Some guy once told us the ‘charm’ was gonna wear off if we didn’t get better at our instruments, that we had to do our 10,000 hours before we were worthy of the hype. This is our response.”

The new single brings into focus the fearless autonomy and joyful rebellion that Body Type have come to embrace – empowered by their own strength and independence. ‘The Charm‘ is all snarl, bite, and facetious wit in the face of condescension. Advice and authority dubbed as “birth control for rock and roll”, Body Type take that unsolicited advice and shove it down the bin. Contraception stands no chance with over-processed guitars and gruff refrains in control, juxtaposed against retro sweetheart-style backing vocals.

Watch: The Charm (Official Video)

The video filmed on Dharawal country, is a cheeky and rambunctious statement directed by long time collaborator Madeleine Purdy. The clip shows the band stuck in the mud, literally and figuratively. They’re fighting through expectations that see them bogged down in the industry. Dolled up and make-up galore the band members essentially sully their feet by trying to move through the stagnant, sticky pools of mud. But at the end of the day, their inertia and inability to move is what is expected of them. but it is far from reality, with drummer Cecil simply walking away. The video is a dizzying and triumphant statement, capitulating the difficulty of being a woman in the music industry and the reality of being bogged down in expectations.

Purdy says the video inspiration comes from a corner of the internet about Car Stuck Girls, where rev-heads like watching women getting stuck in the mud. “The fantasy sticks in the head of the viewer, once the cameras cut the women get out of the mud easily, have a shower, pocket their cash and go about enjoying themselves. I think this video works perfectly for what ‘The Charm’ is about.”

In the wake of back-to-back tours and releases, Sophie McComishAnnabel BlackmanCecil Coleman, and Georgia Wilkinson-Derums regrouped in early 2020, to record their debut album in eight days – shortly before they would become separated by the pandemic. Recorded and mastered by Jonathan Boulet, and entirely self-funded, the album is exultant, effusive, playful, cutting, and maybe most significantly, incandescent in its fury.

It’s an album all about yanking back control, embracing abandon and purging despair, told through the grizzly margins of rock and punk. “We were coming out of a period that felt quite suffocating and restrictive,” says Sophie. “We just kind of regrouped and re-energised and did it ourselves.” Everything Is Dangerous But Nothing’s Surprising sees the dawn of a new world for Body Type, regenerated through their sound, live show and sense of selves. 

EVERYTHING IS DANGEROUS BUT NOTHING’S SURPRISING
May 20 via Poison City Records
PRE-SAVE / PRE-ORDER HERE

The Charm‘ is out now, buy/stream it here.

Artwork by Annabel Blackman.

Stay connected with Body Type:
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ABOUT BODY TYPE

Body Type formed in Sydney in 2016. Sophie was learning the guitar, and Cecil was picking up the drums for the first time, and the pair decided to jam together at a studio in Marrickville. Annabel and Georgia joined the fold through mutual acquaintances. The four-piece quickly began playing shows across Sydney every weekend and releasing a string of beloved singles (their debut track ‘Ludlow’ is always ebulliently sung by fans at live gigs).

Since first forming, the group have shared acclaimed EPs, EP1 and EP2 to global fever and critical acclaim from DIY, NME, Dork, The Line Of Best Fit, The FADER, Stereogum, KEXP, Apple Music’s Matt Wilkinson, BBC Radio 1’s Jack Saunders, triple j’s Declan Byrne and many more. In between support stages with Fontaines D.C., Big Thief, Cate Le Bon, POND, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Frankie Cosmos, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever and more, the group have also performed across SXSW, The Great Escape, and headline tours in the US and UK, including a recorded session at the BBC‘s Maida Vale studios. 

This May, Body Type will release their anticipated debut album, Everything Is Dangerous But Nothing’s Surprising. A thrilling project rich with experimentation without forfeiting indelible hooks. There are many immediate pleasures throughout – rollicking guitar chords, cathartic choruses – but there’s also sourness, a sense of the surreal. Break-up songs are coated in subtle humour and hallucinatory imagery, and rage takes strange, new shapes.