{"id":585304,"date":"2026-05-15T10:36:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T10:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/585304\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T10:36:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T10:36:11","slug":"edward-skeletrix-body-of-work-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/585304\/","title":{"rendered":"Edward Skeletrix: Body of Work Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are countless points during Body of Work, the new hour-long behemoth from Edward Skeletrix<\/a>, where the multi-hyphenate artist stares dead into the proverbial camera. He sounds like he\u2019d rather be anywhere but here. \u201cI need help writing this song,\u201d he mutters on \u201cSlavery.\u201d \u201cPlease save me from the studio.\u201d On \u201cConference,\u201d after crooning for a minute over eerie, undulating tones, he interrupts himself to murmur, \u201cThis song could\u2019ve been fire, but I need more motivation.\u201d The songs he chooses not to rap over he often titles with some variation of \u201cArt Is Sucking the Life Out of Me\u201d (\u201cArt Is Sucking the Life Out of Me Bro,\u201d \u201cArt Is Sucking the Life Out of Me OK,\u201d \u201cArt Is Sucking the Life Out of Me Fr,\u201d etc.).<\/p>\n

Body of Work is the latest opus from the most confounding rapper I\u2019ve ever listened to. Skeletrix uses music as a stepping stone for his pursuits with fashion and AI-embellished visual art; he claims he\u2019ll never do a concert in his career. Whatever you may make of his side hustles, he\u2019s a unicorn for his ghoulish, one-of-one baritone and his ear for dense experimentation; the pained vocals and unnerving pianos of 2023\u2019s \u201cSkeletrix Island<\/a>\u201d are unlike anything else you\u2019ll hear online today. The fact that he says he barely even likes rap, and claims<\/a> his \u201cart doesn\u2019t have deep meaning,\u201d should be enough reason to disengage from his shit altogether, but my curiosity persists. The affecting, uncanny sound design baked into Skeletrix\u2019s work does well to uphold the perception that there is, in fact, a complex message to be dissected. His production choices tend to be as beautiful and layered as they are arcane, and he\u2019s built a cult fandom of people who consider his music high art. Some critics love<\/a> him<\/a>. \u201cI was in a really bad spot, but I started getting the message that he was sending,\u201d one fan said in a recent mini-doc<\/a>. \u201cIt really made me.\u201d<\/p>\n

No score yet, be the first to add.<\/p>\n

Ask a dozen other fans to dissect this message and you might get a dozen different answers. Ask Edward (a self-proclaimed troll<\/a>) and he\u2019ll say, \u201cit\u2019s about having peace in your life,\u201d that \u201clife\u201d is his \u201cbiggest inspiration.\u201d It really just feels like Skeletrix and his audience are reflective of an Internet-brained affinity for art for art\u2019s sake: a disregard for intent in favor of shiny aesthetics. With Body of Work, we get a 26-track sound collage that doesn\u2019t offer much more than the abstract, shape-shifting sonics on the surface. And despite how clear it is that Skeletrix is throwing paint at the wall to see what sticks, I\u2019d be lying if I said if I wasn\u2019t intrigued by some of the splatters left behind.<\/p>\n

The production is a massive silver lining throughout. The \u201cArt Is Sucking the Life Out of Me\u201d interludes remind me of Ricky Eat Acid<\/a>\u2019s ambient gem Three Love Songs<\/a>: sometimes sludgy and fuzzy, sometimes pristine and tender, but always refreshing. Elsewhere, o0o\u2019s trap-inflected beats also strike a chord, from the cosmic bounce of \u201cAriana, Bella Hadid\u201d to the operatic swells of \u201cChaos in the Order.\u201d Edward is mostly fun to listen to when he\u2019s able to find a decent pocket on these kinds of instrumentals. \u201cGuest List,\u201d produced by him and Silas Roe, locks in on a sticky, debaucherous flow that slides smoothly over those slinky chimes that float over a baby\u2019s crib. Genuine earworms like this are fleeting here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are countless points during Body of Work, the new hour-long behemoth from Edward Skeletrix, where the multi-hyphenate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[375,96,128,56,54,55,307],"class_list":["post-585304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-albums","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}