Show Me the Body return with fourth album Alone Together

Show Me the Body have released their fourth album, Alone Together, via Loma Vista, discussing it with DIY. The band is vocalist-banjoist Julian Cashwan Pratt and bassist Harlan Steed, who formed the group in New York in 2009, expanding across genre-bending records that explore oppression, violence and injustice.

The album is shaped by grief. Pratt's mentor, hardcore veteran Mike Down, died after being hit by a bus three years ago, the same month Pratt's daughter was born; Down had brought a teenage Pratt into New York's punk scene, showing him old hardcore and hip-hop. A second, unnamed longtime collaborator of the band also died as Alone Together neared completion. "My friend, I'll see you again," Pratt sings on "See You Again," a tribute written for both. "No grave or cemetery will keep you from me."

Musically, the record dials back the experimentation of past albums like 2019's Dog Whistle and 2022's Trouble the Water in favor of direct songwriting and the energy of the band's live shows. Highlight "No God" swells from a brooding banjo-and-vocals intro into what DIY calls a sludge metal piledriver, while the album also makes room for jazz pieces from local group Standing on the Corner.

The band's worldview runs through CORPUS, a community project they founded that includes a recording studio and local initiatives like food drives and free self-defense classes. Bassist Harlan Steed connects that ethos directly to the album's title: "It's about individuals finding solidarity," he said. "People who know how to be themselves, but also stand together."

Alone Together is out now via Loma Vista, joining the rest of the year's rock releases in the release calendar.