Pigs - Wronger

Pigs - Wronger
Released by: Solar Flare Records
Released on: October 2nd, 2015.
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Pigs are a three piece from Brooklyn. Don't let that stop you from giving them a spin though, because good things can and do come out of Brooklyn on a regular basis. Comprised of Dave Curran (from the Unsane) on guitar and vocals, Jim Paradise on drums and Andrew Schneider on bass, these guys make a lot of weird noise.

Case in point? The opening track off of their new album, A Great Blight. That's the name of the track, not the album… the album is called Wronger. This is almost three minutes of noise. The same guitar riff plays over and over again. Feedback builds. Drums sort of pound seemingly at random but not really at random…. then…. quiet!

That quiet segues into The Life In Pink and almost immediately you think “fuck yeah, Jesus Lizard are back!” But this isn't Jesus Lizard and they're not back. The influence is there though, but this isn't a rip off. No, they also channel Big Business and The Melvins and, as the press release included with this material so astutely noted, early Touch & Go stuff. Not surprisingly, the sound of Unsane factor into this record too. It's a gunge-a-punk-a-noise-pocalypse and it's pretty great. Heavy but not so far gone and distorted that you can't get into it, and plenty intense with a weird breakdown towards the end.

Bet It All On Black is, at over six minutes long, the most epic track on the album but it channels eighties post punk beautifully. Going back to that Touch & Go comparison, you can hear some Laughing Hyenas and some Easy Action here too. The cult of John Brannon is powerful indeed, and their influence only a positive thing. This is riff-tastic from start to finish but that Brannon style scream/howl part of the vocals is hard to ignore. And really, why would you want to ignore it? Just go for it. This is good stuff.

Every other song on the record is shorter than that one. Amateur Hour In Dick City starts off with GUITAR way up in your face. Lots of it. The vocals kick in and you're like, 'Hey Man, Nice Shot' for a second but no, fuck that. This is way more raw, way more angry and way less produced. The howling vocals take you through this sort of weird time warp, it's the early eighties and the early nineties all wrapped into one grungy, metally, punk infused burrito of sound. It wraps you up and you never want to leave.

Mope. That's the title of track five. Mope. Webster's Dictionary defines that word as “to behave in a way that shows you are unhappy and depressed” or “to move around slowly because you are unhappy.” Those literal definitions give you a pretty good idea of what to expect from the sound of this one - but it starts off with a weird industrial sort of drum sound that throws you for a bit of a loop. From there? Yes, you get the impression that these guys are unhappy. That comes across in the music. Somewhere Davids Yow and Sims are smiling. Wrap It Up has got that nutty, mathy, heavy 'we will fucking bury you' sound going on in spades, but the stop start/loud-quiet-loud tempo shifts keep you guessing as to where it's all going to go next.

But what about Mouth Dump? Hmm… this is a two minute long banjo solo with some weird sampled spoken word stuff over top of it. Not idea where those samples are from, but it's interesting to hear it as it's a guy talking about making things better by making other things worse. Make Sure To Forget reminds you not to forget…. about how great guitars can sound when they're way up front in the mix and riffing overtop of heavy, heavy riffs. Lots of riffing here. Some tempo shifts and some unexpected changes in style but this is just solid grunge-punk-post-punk YEAHHHH!!!!!! through and through. It has that Easy Action sound but at the same time has its own thing going on.

Three songs left. Let's give Bug Boy a spin. Why does it sound like Bjork is singing? I'm not sure. It's not Bjork though. The press release says that it's “Made Out Of Babies and Battle Of Mice chanteuse Julie Christmas” so there you go. Either way, the vocals here are all over the place and that's a good thing. This is likely the most intense song on the record, it grabs you and it slaps you in the face a few times and then it squeezes your balls until you start to tear up. Wronger, that'd be the title track, has got a sort of cock rock sound to it at first - not like KISS but more like…. just some heavy swagger. That's all. nobody is teasing their hair here. Curran growls and snarls his way into an additional layer over an already heavy layer of… heavy. But there's a first pumping groove here, the kind that you can't help but get into. Yeah. RAWK! The album ends with Donnybrook. When I said that Bet It All On Black was the 'most epic track' on the album I lied. This is a minute and a half longer and while that doesn't make it more epic per se, the doom, heavy, super heavy, run you over guitar sound that Curran howls overtop of does. This is eight minutes of sludge, but then there's this quiet part that makes you want to take a bit of a break, maybe eat some pita and hummus… but then KABOOM and your face is torn off.

That's how it ends. With your face torn off. I'd go to Coney Island and have hots dogs with these guys. I bet that would be awesome. Just like this record.