In the United Kingdom, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the need for corpses for medical dissection and anatomical study was so great that anatomists would hire men known as "resurrectionists" to supply surgeons with fresh cadavers. Resurrectionists would procure newly deceased bodies through grave robbery and other illicit means, selling them to teaching hospitals and anatomy schools. The clandestine business operated in a legal gray area, creating a black market for human remains within the medical profession. The trade became so lucrative that some resurrectionists even resorted to murder to meet the demand—as documented in the infamous Burke and Hare murders.
On February 15th, 2002, over three hundred decomposing human remains were found on the property of the Tri-State Crematory in Noble, Georgia. After human remains were sighted on the facility's premises, local law enforcement followed up on reports, and it was discovered that director Ray Brent Marsh had abandoned the bodies outdoors, providing families with wood ash or cement mix instead of actual cremated remains. The scandal was eerily reminiscent of the case involving David Sconce and the Lamb Funeral Home in Pasadena, California in the late 1980s. In addition to mutilating bodies in order to facilitate mass cremations, Sconce also harvested body parts for profit, falsified documentation, and embezzled funerary funds. Sconce was convicted of twenty-one counts of mishandling human remains, a case recently popularized in the HBO docuseries, The Mortician.
Earlier this year, in January, thirty-four-year-old Jonathan Gerlach was arrested while leaving the Mount Moriah Cemetery in Philadelphia with a crowbar in one hand and a sack of assorted human remains in the other. For months Gerlach had broken into mausoleums and underground vaults to steal hundreds of human remains. Human skulls, mummified remains, cremains and various other body parts were later discovered at his residence and a nearby storage building. Gerlach, who was allegedly selling human skulls and remains through social media groups, now faces over five hundred counts of vandalism, grave robbery and abuse of a corpse.
Korroded's Body Broker EP, released last week, explores themes of mortuary corruption, murderous religious extremism, cartel violence, and amoral dehumanization. The titular track, "Body Broker" deals with the illegal farming of organs and the indignities of after-death care, while "Cremation Entombment" is an observation on the existentialism around cremation. While both tracks uphold the EP's morbidly blatant subject matter, the theme of dehumanization lies at the core of the record as a whole.
The deconstruction of the human body into commodities in "Body Broker" could be taken literally, but I also believe it is metaphorical and relevant in today's political climate. The hate-filled rhetoric and unlawful policies of the current administration have led to the persecution and increasing dehumanization of targeted communities, allowing agencies like ICE to operate with impunity. The events in Minneapolis are proof of that, and they should be at the forefront of the conversation in Memphis—especially as the Memphis Safe Task Force and ICE are stepping up their presence in the city with plans for a detention center in Marshall County. When you don't see a person as a human being you become capable of rationalizing, committing, or turning a blind eye to all sorts of atrocities.
Memphis, Tennessee's Korroded are a consummate and consistent grindcore powerhouse that combines not only the new school and old school of grindcore, but also thrash metal, beatdown hardcore, and crust punk. They have quickly risen to become one of the top grindcore bands in the state. 2026 has the band returning with their latest six song EP, Body Broker. The last The blog saw of Korroded was our review of their 2023 full-length, Rudiment Butcher. Since that initial record the band has released two additional EP's in the form of 2024's Nanotech Assassination and 2025's Augment To Kill—an annual release run that has had the band honing their mongrel breed of Bluff City grindcore.
Body Broker's vocals are still that uniquely recognizable gruff, ashtray-mouthed-leads countered by high, curdled black metal shrieks. The lead vocals are a gravelly barking reminiscent of bands like Phobia and Cretin. They are that intimidating mix of crust and hardcore that have that heavy-breathed cadence. The backing vocals are mainly doing spot stacks with the leads, but obviously at a higher register. They seemed to have shed the reverb effect from Rudiment Butcher somewhere within the last few EPs. I think the band is all the better for it. The vocals on Body Broker are cleaner and tighter as a result.
Body Broker's guitar and bass are drenched in an ardent distortion. While not exactly the center of attention, the bass guitar has enough hair to match its bark. Its coarse growl sounds like a ground loop in a subwoofer in Hell. The guitarwork is a seething, needling sashay that sticks and moves across the fretboard like a game of five finger fillet. The tone is that thick saturation of blazing and wooly distortion that Korroded is known for. Overdriven power chords bulldoze throughout the songs with little to no elaborate technicality, just punishing metallic menace and headbanging infectiousness. However, the track "Killing Journey," ends with a kind of dissonant, percolating noodling solo that I don't necessarily remember being included in Rudiment Butcher. It's a chaotic climax that steps up the infusion of metal within the riffs without wasting time with more ostentatious solos and grandstanding.
The drumwork is just as tight as the guitar and just as eclectic. Throwback double time skank beats, cymbal catching jackhammering, and skipping blasts crowd against tight snare rolls and speedy modern blast beats. This makes for an exceptionally bouncy rhythm. Nonetheless, the fast tempo on Body Broker seems to be largely unabated, with the exception of the occasional breakdown. The tail ends of "Generative Mutation" and "Cremation Entombment" have a steely-sludgy hardcore swagger that, along with the guitarwork, really emphasizes that bounce. They hit like a fist gripping a roll of quarters in an alleyway dumpster fight.
Body Broker comes off even leaner and more to the point when compared to Korroded's past releases—if that's even possible. There was not much fat to be trimmed in the band's thirty-second to a minute-and-a-half songs, but I think they did it. Like the cannibalized bones dug up in settlement ruins at Jamestown, the songs bear the tool marks of where the flesh was cut and carved away. The EP's mix and master is keenly heavy. As with all of Korroded's releases, the tracklisting is broken up with obscure sound clips that range from the atmospherically ominous to the comically absurd.
Overall, the EP is a cultivation of refinement. Korroded have been whetting their Mississippi River shiv against the concrete of the street curb and fashioning it into a sharp and lethal weapon of blast destruction and disillusionment. While comparisons to bands such as Terrorizer, Repulsion, and ultimately Cretin can't be ignored, Korroded are distinctly their own.
FFO: Phobia, Cretin, Repulsion
Listen to the album: https://korroded.bandcamp.com/album/body-broker
