BODY COUNT have a title for their eighth album. Speaking to Czech outlet Metalshop TV alongside guitarist Ernie "C" Cunnigan, Ice-T confirmed that work on the follow-up to 2024's "Merciless" is beginning now that his own solo record is finished.
"We got a title for the next BODY COUNT album," he said. "And I just finished my rap album, which is called 'Criminal Migraine'… So the fact that I finished that, we're getting ready to start the new BODY COUNT album. So we have a working title. It's gonna be called 'Death Wish'."
He was careful not to promise it soon. "It's a process. We're starting from scratch, so it starts off with the guys making riffs and coming up with all these different ideas and stuff, and then we gotta make them into songs. So it could be at least a year off."
Ice-T also confirmed that "Criminal Migraine" is being sold exclusively through IceT.com rather than the streaming platforms — a deliberate break he framed as the new model for his releases. "I'm not streaming the record. We're going strictly through IceT.com. That's how we're getting ready to sell all our records. We're stopping the streaming."
Asked about the band's steadily heavier direction across recent albums, Ernie C put it simply: "I think it's an evolution. We're just getting harder." Ice-T pointed at the festival circuit as the pressure that drives it. "You're out here playing with harder bands, so you wanna compete. And you can see which way the music's going. So everybody's influenced by everything else… I'll listen to a band and I'll say, 'Man, I wish we had of made that song.'"
That competitive streak extends to their own catalogue. "We had a meeting today and I told them together, I said, if we can't make an album better than 'Merciless', we shouldn't make another record. So the object is always to outdo our last album."
On whether the current political climate in the United States will shape the record, Ice-T said he is deliberately steering away from it, having already made the point on "Merciless" with "Fuck What You Heard" and its line about both wings belonging to the same bird.
"It's so obvious that the United States is having a shit show right now, to the world," he said. "So to almost sing about it is redundant. It's, like, we all know it. It's obvious. So I try to pick things that are a little bit more abstract."
"Merciless" was released in November 2024 via Century Media.
Source: blabbermouth.net