The icon Ice-T took to Twitter today to announce that he and his Grammy-winning rock band Body Count will begin work on their new album this year, Merciless. The upcoming release will mark the group’s eighth LP in just shy of thirty years.
Their previous offering, 2020’s Carnivore, featured the song “Bum-Rush,” which earned them a Grammy for Best Metal Performance at the 63rd Grammy Awards show, which took place this past February.
Body Count Band Official Site
BODYCOUNT NEWS: Even though we have not been able to perform ONE single concert to support the CARNIVORE album because of the Global Pandemic.. We’ve made the decision to Officially start the NEW BC Album ‘MERCILESS’ 2021 @centurymedia@BodyCountBand Stay Tuned pic.twitter.com/D5FxU5LMa3
— ICE T (@FINALLEVEL) June 22, 2021
Body Count have issued the following VV important announcement:
“BODYCOUNT NEWS: Even though we have not been able to perform ONE single concert to support the [2020] CARNIVORE album because of the Global Pandemic.. We’ve made the decision to Officially start the NEW BC Album ‘MERCILESS’ 2021 …Stay tuned…”
- Ice-T (with Body Count) Discography @ 320 Studio (1987) Rhyme Pays (1988) Power (1989) The Iceberg (Freedom of Speech. Just Watch What You Say) (1991) O.G. (Original Gangster) (1993) Home Invasion (1994) The Ice Opinion 3 CD`s (1996) VI - Return of the Real (1999) The Seventh Deadly Sin (2006) Gangsta Rap With Body Count Body Count - (1992) Body Count Body Count - (1994) Born Dead Body Count.
- In 2012, Ice-T announced that the band had signed to Sumerian Records, and released their fifth studio album, 'Manslaughter' in 2014. In December 2016, the band issued the politically charged 'No Lives Matter,' single from Body Count's sixth studio 'Bloodlust' which was produced by Will Putney and released on March 31, 2017; Body Count received.
- Ice-T left Warner Bros. Records the following year because of disputes over the Ice-T solo album Home Invasion, taking Body Count with him. Despite the controversy, the album received some praise, including A- reviews from Entertainment Weekly and The Village Voice, who later ranked the album among their list of The 40 Best Albums of 1992.
My random thoughts + questions about this:
Ice T Body Count Full Album
- Merciless is a great title for a Body Count album!
- It seems like not that long ago that Body Count were M.I.A. (there was a nine-year gap between Violent Demise and Murder 4 Hire, and an eight-year gap between Murder 4 Hire and Manslaughter) and a lot of fans — myself included — thought they were dunzo. But since Manslaughter in 2014, they’ve put out a new album every three years, and now it seems like the time between releases will be even closer together. And the albums are all still good! I hope they keep up this pace.
- Are we supposed to make Bodycount one word now? If so, do we still capitalize the C or nah?
More Merciless news as it becomes available.
Furious, explicit and uncompromising, Body Count, led by Ice-T are hard to define, sort of hard rock/metal/thrash band with full, hard-core, rap credentials. This is the original and first release. The political and social messages are writ large in Ice-T's VERY graphic and explicit lyrics, but it is also a thumping rock album.
Despite not be able to play live in support of last year’s Carnivore, Body Count, the band still won this year’s Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance for that album’s track “Bum-Rush.”