FIT FOR AN AUTOPSY
Seeing Red
Some bands are angry. Fit For An Autopsy arereallyangry. As a deathcore band writing about real-world horrors, they can’t bring themselves to look away – no matter what
WORDS: MERLIN ALDERSLADE • PICTURES: BEN GIBSON
Fit For An Autopsy are an angry band. They sound angry, their unique ‘post-deathcore’ a savage outcry about the state of planet Earth. While some of their peers write posturing anthems driven by aimless rage, everyday heartbreak or juvenile gore and grisliness, FFAA dig into real-world trauma –like Gojira and Cattle Decapitation before them, they’re making extreme music with a purpose, tackling political injustice, the environment and capitalistic corruption.
They also look angry. Promotional photos show six big, glowering, tattooed dudes staring down the camera, and live shows reveal a frontman who looks like a pissed-off Uruk-Hai as he screams and bellows his guts out. So yeah, Fit For An Autopsy are angry. They’re furious, in fact. Scratch that: they’re positively seething. They’re… they’re… all bopping around this freezing-cold warehouse singing along to Haddaway’s 90s house banger, What Is Love. Wait, hold on…
“I mean, my first ever concert was Backstreet Boys,” grins frontman Joe Badolato, quickly clarifying: “Into The Millennium tour!”
OK, so maybe Fit For An Autopsy aren’t always angry. They mostly save that for the studio, where they can unleash their frustrations at the world in full, nailing their political colours to the mast, unbothered by the backlash that may follow.
In 2017 they released Black Mammoth, a song written in solidarity with those who objected to the construction of the final section of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which would carry oil from North Dakota to Illinois via an area just north of Standing Rock, a Sioux Native American reservation. Protesters feared the project would destroy sacred burial sites and contaminate drinking water. The video for the single showed footage of previous devastation caused by oil spills, alongside protesters, police and historical artwork depicting themes of colonialism.