Review: “Seasonal Allergies, Vol. 26” by My Body

While it seems like just yesterday the young sensation known as My Body dropped the most recent album in the “Allergy Series” — Winter Allergies — it’s back and worse than ever with the truly audacious Seasonal Allergies Vol. 26, a collection of some of the worst symptoms I’ve seen in my long career. In the past, My Body has astounded us with new and impressive innovations, but this latest release is truly an assault on the senses.

Winter Allergies, which came out some time before Christmas, was steeped in inspiration from My Body’s recent move to New York City — you can feel the radiator-dust inspired dryness, the frigid air, and the lack of breath abundant in every track. Seasonal Allergies simply lacks the charm and originality of its predecessor — in fact, it seems like the move to New York did nothing but inspire My Body to produce some of its worst work yet.

Seasonal Allergies opens with “Extreme Nasal Congestion,” seemingly out of nowhere — and this isn’t your run-of-the-mill nasal congestion made for the general audience. This is some next-level, deep cut kind of nasal congestion. You will literally not be able to breathe once this track kicks in, and no amount of humidifier or Sudafed can stop it. It’s the powerhouse of “Seasonal Allergies,” for sure, and it opens the audience up for the downward spiral they’re about to suffer through.

My Body seamlessly flows through the album with a little ditty called “Eternal Scratchy Throat” — I know you’re thinking you’ve heard of this one before, maybe from an earlier album from My Body called Common Cold, but this version isn’t the booming, persistent, and percussive tune we all know. This, instead, is a strange, quiet, itchy track that just kind of sits there, ruminating, waiting to ruin any kind of noise you were thinking of making and spoiling any kind of dry food. It’s reminiscent of that classic My Body EP “The Time I Tried Smoking,” but, for obvious reasons, infinitely less cool.

I don’t know what My Body was thinking with the track “Sneezes,” but it is without a doubt the worst thing I’ve ever experienced outside of the monumental rock opera Getting Hit by a Car, Vol. 3. “Sneezes” is a loud, angry romp that is as unpleasant to the ear as it is to the face, as if the nose is trying to simultaneously bitch slap the air and throw mucus like a shot-put — and let’s talk about the mucus, which sneaks in to nearly every track on the album like Phil Spector producing “Let It Be,” except my gut tells me I’d prefer convicted murderer Spector over the mucus. The worst part about “Sneezes” is that My Body clearly has no concept of the track’s length, syncopation, rhythm — is this some kind of wondering waltz or speed metal? “Sneezes” is, by far, the worst part of the album, and certainly doesn’t earn the numerous reprises My Body performs every other track.

After the long slog of “Sneezes,” I believe My Body was trying to give some kind of respite from the madness with this next track. However, I found “DayQuil” a hard pill to swallow. It starts rough, but eventually starts seeming like a fantastic concept — it brings an eventual end to “Sneezes,” after all. The problem, though, with “DayQuil” is that once it settles in, it just puts me to sleep. Rarely does a track inspire such a sense of lethargy. I resisted the urge to skip “DayQuil,” if only because I prefer lethargy to insanity like “My Face is Leaking” and “Sneezes, Part VII: Sneezing Like a Sprinkler at The Park.”

The spirit of the album is properly summed up in the final track, “Vice Crushed Skull,” a track that is both extremely painful and seemingly never ending. Frankly, I’m surprised that My Body is even capable of something like this. We’ve all seen My Body do amazing things in the past — who could forget “Beating Your Cousin at Wrestling,” “Climbing the Rope in Gym Class,” and the signature, coming-of-age classic, “Puberty.” I suppose that while My Body is capable of fantastic things, it can also produce some of the most baffling experiences a person can possibly live through. “Vice Crushed Skull” is on par with “Nocturnal Emissions” as far as tracks that I don’t understand and never want to experience again, but we all know My Body will bring them back year after year for whatever reason.

The worst part of Seasonal Allergies is that it’s one in an ongoing, 26-volume series of Seasonal Allergies albums that My Body releases every year, and even this series is just a small part in the general “Allergies” chronicle. It would seem that My Body is constantly producing “Allergies” albums, but like most performers, they just get worse as the years go on. I probably would have preferred Seasonal Allergies earlier in My Body’s career, before it went mainstream, but now I just don’t have patience for these raw, unrehearsed, messes of albums. This year’s Seasonal Allergies is no exception — in fact, it may be one of the worst yet.

In short, Seasonal Allergies, Vol. 26, is an awful, painful, waste of time. Unfortunately, much like the U2 album “Songs of Innocence,” I’m going to get it no matter what and I have no idea how to get rid of it.

Matt Coggins is a comedian, designer, and a diehard fan of My Body (before it went mainstream.) You can find him at mattcoggins.com or @mattcoggins on Twitter and Instagram.