Soul Meets Body: The Joys of Eating the Rich.

Hey y’all it’s Old Hank. I’ve been on hiatus to work on my own shit but I am attending to CSC issues that demand attention. Soul Meets Body is one such issue.

Specifically I’m talking about the write-up a local publication did on this fun punk band last August. It’s been stuck in my throat for months and SMB’s show at Superfly last weekend is a great opportunity to hack it up like the hairball it is.

The story dropped the day of Soul Meets Body’s record release party last August 21st at the Southern. And it went negative. Before the show. Without actually experiencing the work.

The story was presumably written to make a publication deadline and fill an “upcoming events” need.

But it was written as if it were some sort of review of the band, with no real idea what music the band would play. Or the message they would express. Or how their fans would react.

Why the hurry? Here’s an idea. Why not go to the show, experience the band alongside the fans and write your piece for the following week?

You’re playing with the lives and creative work of people who matter. Who have a message that matters. And a community of followers that needs that message expressed. You need to take that shit seriously and do the work.

Your article started with the words “If you don’t have anything nice to say, word on the street is you’re not supposed to say anything.”

Maybe you felt like you needed to defend your right or obligation as a critic to take a dump on a piece of work.

Fine. But for fuck’s sake, go see the work before you pop your squat.

We have a different take on Soul Meets Body that comes from actually going to their show.

Take it away Bazz.

In 2026, in a country that feels louder, angrier, and more divided by the day, Soul Meets Body are not trying to be neutral. They are not trying to be polite. And they are definitely not trying to be quiet.

Like so many of us, they’re pissed off. But they don’t just shout into the void, they build a space where the rest of us can shout too. Maybe that noise sparks change. At the very least, no one has to feel alone and everyone can thrash about and have a blast.

What makes Soul Meets Body compelling isn’t just what they say.  It’s how they say it. On stage, their beliefs don’t land like a lecture. They land like a party.  Like a room full of people laughing at the shit-eatiing criminals and numbering their days. It’s a raw hardcore wall from Nate, Brandon and Ryan pierced by a pop-laced scream-hook from Genevieve.

The protest, the threat, the refusal all seems somehow joyful. At a Soul Meets Body show, the anger doesn’t curdle into bitterness.  It turns into energy.  Into sweat.  Into a blast.

Nowhere is that more obvious than in their song, “We’re All Going to Hell.” from their Orion Redwolf produced album Hallucination. This is some devilishy enjoyable nihilism:

“We're all going to hell
No one's safe as far as I can tell
We're all gonna die
Turn into holy ghosts up in the sky”

Spend five minutes in the room with the band and you realize this isn’t destruction for destruction’s sake.  It’s a refusal to just sit back and accept a world that feels upside down. 

“So cynical, so pessimistic
I don’t want to be another statistic
It’s twice the work, and half the pay
Maybe this is what you get for studying that BFA”

In 2026, the weight on our younger generations isn’t theoretical. It’s crushing. Six figures of student debt for degrees that were sold as stability. Corporate consolidation swallows everything, squeezing opportunity until “twice the work and half the pay” feels generous. All while these kids scroll past record-breaking heat waves that become just another headline alongside this week’s school shooting.  Suffocated by a political system that is clearly engineered to protect power and now dubious proclivities, not people.

“The planet's up in flames after all we're all doomed.”

If we are all doomed, what should we do with the time we have? Mope?

Soul Meets Body says “Hell no, let’s go to a show with friends and like-minded people around us, scream it out and make some art that tries to do something about it.”

The idea written in the article referenced above that “no one picks bands based on how communal their shows feel” ignores entire chapters of music history.

People didn’t just follow the Grateful Dead because of chord progressions that went on for a while.  They followed them because the shows were communal rituals.  Because strangers became family in parking lots.  Because the experience mattered as much as the music.

Bruce Springsteen built a career on marathon concerts where the crowd felt seen, sung to, invited in for the evening.

Fugazi didn’t just play shows. They built affordable, inclusive spaces in the D.C. punk scene where community was the point.

Music has always been about more than sound. It’s about shared experience.

That doesn’t replace good songwriting.  It amplifies it.

“Tell my boss I won't come to work when I am dead
Fuck these fucking fascists and their rich-ass corporate friends
Rob my grave to reap your record highs when I die
What the fuck, all this time and we're still moving backwards
Man up and spit in the face of their authority
Let the blood of the bourgeoisie fill our streets”