Health&Beauty - Shame Engine / Blood Pleasure (2019) [HI-Res]

The new album from Health&Beauty – Shame Engine / Blood Pleasure – is their 2nd for Wichita Recordings and the 7th of their career. The recording features a large cast of musicians from the outfit’s past and its present helping the band’s founder and sole constant Brian J Sulpizio achieve his idiosyncratic vision—a sound and ethos he’s been kicking around, retooling, and finessing for more than 15 years. The new album conveys a directness and scorching power that seems to stem from the band’s live performances, whether the harrowing, droning blues of the opener “Saturday Night” or the soulful Irish-tinged folk-rock of “Recourse.” The most gripping and satisfying installment in Health&Beauty’s process yet, renowned Chicago music critic, Peter Margasak, has declared Shame Engine / Blood Pleasure as “one of the great rock albums to emerge from Chicago this decade”, and it’s surely one for fans of Jim O’Rourke’s song-based output, as well as appealing to anyone who enjoys “Tonight’s The Night”-era Neil Young.