ICE-T Hopes To Complete New BODY COUNT Album 'Merciless' Before End Of Year

BODY COUNT, the metal band fronted by hip-hop legend, actor and director Ice-T, is continuing the recording process for its new album, "Merciless". The follow-up to 2020's "Carnivore" is tentatively due in early 2023 via Century Media.

Speaking to Darren Paltrowitz, host of the "Paltrocast With Darren Paltrowitz", Ice-T stated about the upcoming BODY COUNT LP (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Will Putney's producing again. We've had three consecutive great albums working with Will; he understands. I call him 'the Dr. Dre of metal,' because he has the ability to produce different groups but make them sound like themselves, but just better.

"We did 'Carnivore', and right [when] our first date of touring was supposed to start, COVID hit," he continued. "COVID hit, shut down all the stateside tour; 35 European festivals shut down; and we didn't really get to really perform the album; we didn't get to go out, and that kind of sucks.

"You make albums to perform 'em; you don't make 'em just [to sit at home]. And we won a Grammy on that one. That was great; that was a great accolade. It kind of took the sting out of dropping an album to a dead scene; it took the sting out of it. But then the label's, like, 'Okay, we'll do another album.' And I'm, like, 'Wait a minute. We didn't even really get this one out good."

According to Ice-T, he has recorded the vocals for six new BODY COUNT songs so far.

"Usually when I do songs, I'll do the songs but I don't complete 'em," he explained. "Like, if there's gonna be three verses, I'll sing two and then I kind of live with them, and maybe that way I can think about how I wanna end the song and how I wanna change it up. So I did six songs that everybody likes.

"I'm at a point now… When I first used to do albums, I would do, like, 20 songs and then try to pick 12. Now I'm very difficult to find the music, so by the time I pick 12, those are the 12 songs. I'm not doing a whole bunch of recording just to find that… I know what I'm doing. I'm like that photographer that knows how to just wait until the right moment to take the picture: 'Okay, that's one… two.' Versus the guy [who takes a bunch of pictures one after the other]. I don't need to do that.

"So the 'Merciless' album is sounding pretty hard, though," Ice-T added. "We named the motherfucker 'Merciless'. I'm hoping to have it complete before the New Year so that we could drop it next year and be ready to tour in the summer."

"Carnivore" continued the path of its uncompromising and critically acclaimed predecessors, "Bloodlust" and "Manslaugther", in pairing Ice-T's impassioned and socio-critical lyrics with thick guitar riffs and nods to metal and hardcore greats like SLAYER, METALLICA, PANTERA, SUICIDAL TENDENCIES and RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE. Guest musicians on the LP included Amy Lee (EVANESCENCE),Dave Lombardo (ex-SLAYER),Jamey Jasta (HATEBREED) and Riley Gale (POWER TRIP).

BODY COUNT was honored with a Grammy in the "Best Metal Performance" category in the pre-telecast ceremony at the 63rd annual Grammy Awards, which was held in March 2021 in Los Angeles. BODY COUNT was nominated for "Bum-Rush", a track from "Carnivore".