METALLICA: S&M2 (film)

Posted on October 13, 2019 by kevinsmusicblog

AUDIO-VISUAL S&M SPECTACULAR – AND A LITTLE BIT OF THE UNEXPECTED

20 years after their S&M excursion with Michael Kamen and The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Metallica return to the city for a two-date symphonic return: S&M2. For those who couldn’t make it – every Metallica fan in the world, statistically speaking – there’s been a chance to see the concert film in cinemas on October 9. Does it add anything to the Metallica canon?

Let’s warm up a little. You’ve got the biggest metal band of all time putting another extra out there for the fans (has any other band given as much footage as this lot?). They’re on imperious form. And they’ve somehow found time to prep for an orchestra gig and turn it into an international cinema screening so it’s pretty special, a proper event. These are all Good Omens, and with the band at a golden late age in their career, the idea of Symphony Days Re-revisited feels celebratory and critic-proof, which wasn’t necessarily the case with S&M 1999.

Bollocks to critical speculation though, this just feels RIGHT. An unexpected gift from one of the most important bands in your life.

The Ecstasy of Gold sets us off, as ever – always a hair tingler, it is many times more so when pumped with millions of orchestral vibrations and Metallica’s immersive in-the-round camera angles. Then The Call of Ktulu reminds us how infallible a composition it is, unwittingly built for a symphonic set-up.

But just when you think S&M2 might be a straight run though of the original, we get a change. The Memory Remains pops up early to showcase massive audience participation and The Day That Never Comes jolts us into a post-Reload reality – looks like non-S&M tracks will be in the set after all, so now it feels like a gig and we don’t really know what’s coming. GAME ON. Confusion, Moth into the Flame and Halo on Fire make Hardwired the joint most represented album tonight (with Metallica), and other huge cuts include For Whom the Bell Tolls, Wherever I May Roam, No Leaf Clover, One and Load’s titanic closer The Outlaw Torn.

Special mention goes to Master of Puppets, not just because you’re reminded (again) of how structurally fucking awesome it is, but because it’s where the show hits peak charge – the point where collapse into chaos looks most likely. It’s Master of Puppets … things get a little pumped but it doesn’t fall apart. Metallica and friends somehow stick with the score..

What really lifts this gig though are the touches (spoiler alert) that shift it from ‘Can we actually do this orchestral thing?’, which must have a been a concern with S&M 1999, to ‘We know we can do this. How can we make it better?’

Here’s how. Let musical director Michael Tilson Thomas lead us into classical tasters on primitivism and futurism during the interval. Put James on stage with no band, not even a guitar (looks weird), to sing Unforgiven III with army-sized orchestral back-up. Pull the plug literally and give St Anger epic All Within My Hands an oversized Alice in Chains/Jar of Flies acoustica outing. Pretty damned cool.

But best of all …

“You remember Cliff Burton, don’t you? We do. So does Scott Pingel … and he’s here to pay tribute.”

(Anesthesia) – Pulling Teeth. OMfG. Cry? You might, you just bloody well might, because watching this virtuoso carve Burton’s solo out of his upright bass in San Francisco is a right-on tribute. Metallica have never been short of generosity, especially for their fans, and this moment captures that: honour paid to their lost past, gifted to someone outside the inner circle, within the show. A precious moment.

Nothing Else Matters and Enter Sandman finish the set – no surprise – but, as with everything else, the symphonic novelty pumps new blood. Metallica have conquered again with an ambitious project that might just put more adventurous fire up ’em. Will they ride a slower Reload swagger or two next time they get in the studio, instead of the slightly by-numbers thrash metal tack of Hardwired? Wouldn’t be surprised. Definitely wouldn’t be disappointed, either.

And Hetfield … you watch him knowing that in a few days from doing this, he checked back into rehab. Let’s hope he does what he has to do and gets well, but he’s in the voice of his life here, as is everyone on and around that stage. There are no minus points, not after a one-off large-screen viewing where symphonic heft surrounds you. It feels too good.

Metallica 2019, S&M2. Still the metal kings.

TOOL: NO FEAR NO MORE

Posted on September 1, 2019 by kevinsmusicblog

Lucky lucky lucky.

After yesterday’s words on the lack of Tool, Fear Inoculum is here.

It’s real. It has landed

A gift. A belated birthday present from my bester half (thankyouJ x). Didn’t expect that to come off, not at all, but here we are. New Tool 2019.

Tool: Fear Inoculum Deluxe

TOOL: NO FEAR?

Posted on August 31, 2019 by kevinsmusicblog

AUGUST REWIND: TOOL MUSINGS, BURIAL’S NEW FLAME … AND AN ELK HORN

Tool. Four-letter word of the month, event of the year, band of all time and all that, but even though Fear Inoculum is finally out, it remains untouched by many devout followers because it’s not available physically – even if you could shell out 75 quid plus for the deluxe version, there’s no stock. So, it’s a waiting game. I don’t want to blow a new Tool audio sensation by rushing it through crappy digi mobile tech that won’t do it justice. I’m putting faith in old-school formats appearing because I don’t believe that Tool, one of the most meticulous and attentive rock bands of all time, will deny millions of fans the chance to hear the album that way. It’s been 13 years, a bit longer won’t hurt.

(it does hurt. #whereisaffordablefearinoculumcd)

Because of all the Tool build-up, 10,000 Days has been on rotation a fair bit and Right in Two‘s eventual intense pummel has crept in as a new Tool-worm. Class. But some BTL comments (Guardian Fear Inoculum review) shows that some people in this crazy world express mild disappointment with 10,000 Days …

… que? How is that even a thing? And doesn’t it break some natural law?

Even weirder is the fact that August threw up ace new tunes despite Adam Jones, Justin Chancellor, Danny Carey and Maynard James Keenan having nothing to do with them.

Insane, I know. But true. Check a couple of these non-Tool sonics.

FLAME 2 – Dive

Flame 2 is the second collaboration between Burial and The Bug. DIVE is the dark hour, the pitch black business end of the day/night. Beat-less heavy ambience on a full burn. Controlled tension. Without knowing anything about The Bug bar the name, I can’t comment on its merit as a collaboration, but the potent whiff of Burial’s urban nocturnal is more than enough.

ELKHORN – To See Darkness

Rootsy psych-folk with a cosmic sprawl. TO SEE DARKNESS picks out a rich John Fahey-like tapestry until an electrified late scorch fires it up Six Organs of Admittance style, aka spiritual trip magic.

Other shorter bites: Black Midi‘s album has been out a wee while but 953‘s collision of mangled riffs and scattered beats is a welcome shot of intellectualised noisy rock. And for something non-rock but wholly gutsy and compelling, Tenesha the Wordsmith – WHY WHITE FOLKS CAN’T CALL ME … – packs race politics and civil wrongs into a jazz-feel trancey pulse ‘n’ flow. Searing stuff.

KING’S X CANCEL

The news we never wanted to hear – King’s X have cancelled their European tour. Gutted not to be seeing them in Cardiff in September but, more importantly, let’s hope their family emergency is sorted and everyone is OK. As we know, King’s X have a lot of love, warmth and affection flowing their way. We can’t help it.

’til next time!

amplifier wordsmith: the monthly rewind

ALGIERS: live review

Posted on July 6, 2019 by kevinsmusicblog

ALGIERS AT THE BULLINGDON, OXFORD, JULY 4, 2019

EXPLOSIVE.

Too much already?

I don’t think so. And, judging by the ear-to-ear grins doing the rounds at the Bullingdon, I don’t think anyone else thinks so either.

Algiers lock this 4th of July night down with a one-hour compaction of incendiary avant guitar soul – none of it smooth – and if Walk Like a Panther is your route into this band, as it was for me after a first hearing late last year, you’ll know what that means.

It means you can’t write much without sounding like a shallow, know-nothing arsehole.

Because that track feels like hundreds of years of humanity – struggle, oppression, vitality, love – packed into a fast-edit soundtrack to a burning world, and a lot of that’s down to Franklin James Fisher’s riveting gospel-range vocals. Potent and soul-full, you sense that Algiers are gonna convert that sound into something truly special live because they have to. With a track that fearsome, anything less than revelatory would be fraudulent.

And convert, they do. For just four people – Fisher voice, Lee Tesche guitar, Matt Tong drums, the loose-limbed Ryan Mahan on bass – they make a wild but blisteringly assured sound, almost building their songs as they go along – guitar and keyboard fragments recorded and looped, noise and beats pushed in and out, tambourines and chains shaken and struck. It’s real-time production and construction while playing, and the interplay within the band is loose and pure. If the power cut, they’d find a way to play. You feel they have to get the message out.

Two new tracks get played back to back, both peak-fury punk bombs. Don’t know what the names are but it doesn’t really matter, they’ll be out soon enough. Don’t know what most of the other tracks are either, except for Walk Like a Panther, Blood and The Underside of Power, because when this gig was announced, I held off buying any Algiers albums beyond the digi downloads already bagged. Why? It was a rare chance to see a band in as pure a form as poss, knowing that if they do their job (which they did) they’re gonna sell me the records easily anyway (ditto). Preparation ain’t the point. Participation is.

And tonight we’re bang in the middle of it, the eye of a spirit force: riot soul meets Gambino’s America pulling on Bad Seeds, Godspeed and Zeal & Ardor for as intoxicating a gig as you dared hope. Let’s just leave it at that. For now.

WELLINGTON FUZZ

Posted on June 28, 2019 by kevinsmusicblog

JUNE REWIND: EARTH TONGUE, SHOW ME THE BODY AND STALE STORLOKKEN

A fragmented Rewind, this – just three tracks from the past month, that’s it. Why so little?

Because time ran away.

Because the ace new Raketkanon, Cave In and Ifriqiyya Electrique albums haven’t been played enough to write up YET.

Because King Crimson dominated the month by having the cheek-faced bare to celebrate 50 years in music with a Royal Albert Hall stint and so instigate a last-minute decision to go and witness another visceral KC performance.

Because the Basic Dicks tape hasn’t arrived yet.

Because because because ….

Time, dammit. Here are those new chunks.

EARTH TONGUE: Microscopic God

Packing thick new-jazz busy beats and non-4/4 signatures under fuzzy metallic riffs and semi robotic male-female vocalising, New Zealand duo Earth Tongue are a few steps removed from the blues roots of many a guitar-drum two-piece we’ve come to know. It’s a bit alien, a bit one-off, like a not-yet-realised Melvins collaboration or even a cyborg Crystal Fairy. Warm and cold and sexy and so Very Very Now. Check the Microscopic one here.

SHOW ME THE BODY: Forks and Knives

New York hardcore with electro noise abrasion and Dalek-heavy hip-hop distortions thrown in. Unrelenting in a Gnod kinda way, but urgent and fleeting and almost unfinished. Don’t know why it made me want to revisit Protomartyr’s Relatives in Descent, but it did. Urban anger? Maybe, though this lot crank it way more. Forks and Knives this way.

STALE STORLOKKEN: Skyrocket Hotel

No vocals here, just arcing surging drones and buried lo-tech electronics with a 70s filmscore vibe, forged by Norwegian jazz player Stale Storlokken who counts Supersilent and Motorpsycho among his gigs. I know nothing. But if drone done the Urthona or To Blacken The Pages way is your thing, this’ll grab you where it feels good. It did me.

Right then, that’s it. Live action soon with Algiers in Oxford next week.

’til next time!

amplifier wordsmith: the monthly rewind

THOUGHT INDUSTRY: mOds carve the pig

Posted on May 30, 2019 by kevinsmusicblog

ABSURDIST PRE-MATHCORE METAL FROM SURREALIST BRAINIACS

For some reason, the late 80s felt like a time when bands of riotous technicolour ruled the rock soundscapes, or were at least allowed to explode and shower the place briefly. Some of them were no-bounce fad balls, some were screwball goof-clowns, and some were genre-colliding pioneer heads. Some were just ‘mad, I am’ knobheads.

But whatever they were, dull wasn’t it. You can’t put po-faced monochrome on albums like Introduce Yourself, Freaky Styley, Time’s Up and Nothing’s Shocking, and the bands who took the best of that crossover wave and rode it into the early 90s – some of them dubbed funk metal, some not – ended up as victims of timing. Colourful came to be the enemy. After all, Poison were colourful. Flamboyance was out, so was irreverence. It’s no coincidence that Anthrax, before Persistence of Time, were seen as the least credible of the big four. Why? Bermuda shorts, cartoons and I’m the Man raps. Grunge – and Metallica’s Black Album – killed that frippery right off.

By the time Thought Industry‘s second album, Mods Carve the Pig, appeared in 1993, the US North West had gone so viral that Kurt Cobain was staring the brink of his own end-time. Through no fault of its own, Seattle stole our eyes off some quality balls, and this album was one of them.

Grunge it ain’t. What happens when you press play?

Thought Industry: not regular

First, a warning: BE READY. Don’t expect to have a minute to kick back or scratch arse while the album warms up because there is no warm-up. There is no room to be a casual motherfucker. Track #1 HORSEPOWERED fires off a hyper assault from the very first scream, a full-on synapse scraper – but give it a minute and they’ll chop out a jazz prog intercept.

Not for long though. They’ll revert to frenzy then forge a full metal bridge. After that, what? A Primus funk blowout?

Yep. What is this shit? Mathcore?

Probably not – it’s too wayward, and anyway mathcore wasn’t even A Thing back then (was it?), but Thought Industry are/were hard core musos for sure. They play a lot, they play a lot fast, they switch at warp speed, they fry, and that’s just the opening track but there’s no chest-beater machismo or brow-scrunching hardman angst here – the aggression is musical: scalpel precise, yet free-wheeling. Mr Bungle’s attention-deficit splatter would be an influence if Bungle had been older, but looking at the dates, they were contemporaries. Bungle’s big number 2, Disco Volante, was still two years unborn at this point.

But we mention Mr Bungle because Mods Carve the Pig is also hyperactive and overstimulated, and this is why the saturated-colour hybrid funked-thrash and crossover metal of the late 80s feels like a factor in their sound. Death Angel mixed it up on the brilliant Act III. The Beyond got busy and tinny on Crawl. Primus and Fishbone’s antics masked big-time muso talents. Steve Vai crammed a career’s worth of ideas into Passion & Warfare, a masterpiece of colour and theatrics.

Thought Industry orbits this kinda mutoid prog space, hardcore style.

NO SKIN

Anyway, back to Mods. After HORSEPOWERED’s blistering flay and DATERAPE COOKBOOK’s low-life beat-writer lens, we get GELATIN’s wicked, fast-sliding intro riff and outlaw-tough bass under a grinding little groove that’s upended by a what-the-feck waltz of a lull (for a minute) and a volte-face to a lacerating chorus (NO … SKIN). Then repeat. Sort of. Chaotic to the end.

And this is how it goes throughout the album. WHITFIELD is hardcore funk but no jollies. BOIL cools the temperature with a fearsome rhythm that revels in quiet creep till shattered by a blast beat. As for MICHIGAN JESUS …. how do you fancy Minor Threat loaded with thrashers’ proficiency and a la-la-la chorus? Demented, speed-punk catchy and the hookiest track of the album for sure.

Then, maybe, the peak: SMIRK THE GODBLENDER rams clipped thrash riffs into clean-pick arpeggios, a Helmet semi groove and a ton of other touches that demand ears not words, and that’s typical of this untypical record: it IS groove metal, of sorts, though it’s not always obvious. The fluidity is astonishing.

And even if the gentlest offering, the acoustic PATIENTLY WAITING FOR SUMMER, doesn’t always convince – it’s like the vocal melody can’t find a way in to the music – so what? It still bores awkwardly into your head. Cool instrumental exit, too.

HALCYON PRICK ABSINTHE LOADED

While you’re trying to catch up to the music, open out the artwork and decipher the lyrics you missed – just don’t expect it to make sense. Not literally. Halcyon prick absinthe loaded are the first four words. Thought Industry’s aesthetic is its own World, like those Dead Kennedy inner sleeves, except TI’s storytelling is much more oblique, surreal, gonzo, beat, squalid, conceptual. And with Salvador Dali’s ‘Apotheosis of Homere’ on the cover, the artwork’s an art work. Check the typography cap-O quirk too.

But the last track has none of those literary elements. TO BUILD A BETTER BULLDOZER drops the vocals and winds up the pace with a fiendish rhythm-riff intro and some Discipline-ery King Crimson guitar interplay. Shit, man. Stripped of word and voice, a fearsome prog band is revealed.

FRIED

Would you listen to this album every day?

Perhaps not, unless frazzle fry is a state you’re striving for. Then again, in the years since this album came out, mathcore became real and System of a Down reached millions, so maybe Mods Carve the Pig’s hyperactivity doesn’t sound like that much of a big deal to new ears. I don’t have that perspective. I got it when it came out and it sounded so unlike anything else that it shocked, but it compelled too and it stands up now because it’s aggressive, colourful, hyperactive, musical and unbound by genre codes. Free and visionary. An obscene talent.

So if Mr Bungle, Dillinger Escape Plan, Faith No More, Primus, Galactic Cowboys, Infectious Grooves, System of a Down, Voivod, Devin Townsend and any of their restless genre-crossing ilk are twitching among your grooves, yet Thought Industry passed you by, check this album. Every track explodes.

And if you’re hooked, here’s a tip: album #3, Outer Space is a Martini Away, is at least as good.

But that’s for another day.

mOds carve the pig: assassins, tOads and gOd’s flesh

Dustin Donaldson – drums and percussion
Brent Oberlin – vocals and bass
Christopher Lee – guitars left
Paul Enzio – guitars right

Released 1993 on Metal Blade

Thought leaders

URTHONA MEETS THE OTHER WITHOUT: calm meditations

Posted on May 1, 2019 by kevinsmusicblog

APRIL REWIND: ALBUM #2 FROM URTHONA/OTHER PROJECT, BLACKENED BEATS BY GHOSTS AND TEMPLE, AND NEW RACKET FROM RAKETKANON

April kicked arse in terms of gigs. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs bulldozered the Bullingdon and then, just two days later on the same stage, Jim Jones let us into his headspace. Of those two bands there’s no question that Pigsx7 have got more going on, but a sharp-dressed Jim Jones and the Righteous Mind made a rollicking Friday night. With tracks like Sex Robot and Satan’s Got a Hard-On for You, knocked out with righteous holler, how can they not entertain? They do. Right on.

OK, on with the show with new sounds.

THE OTHER WITHOUT: 2

If you’re partial to Urthona‘s heavy rural distortions then you probably already know about an Urthona-related project that’s on album #2 already, but I didn’t. It’s The Other Without.

Who they? Neil Mortimer and Michael J York. What they do? Penetrate your head with space – an hour and five minutes of it, to be exact-ish. Four long trips of quiet motion, field recordings, keyboard swells and guitar arcs. Birdsong. Waves. Motifs tinkling, slow planetary turns, not a shred of Urthona-styled violence. A Novel Method for Determining Galaxy Orbits serves a hushed ambience for outer space cinematics, while Albion Light Vessel strips all mass from its electronics. Galactic or not, everything is earthbound. Beat-less but pulsing. The nature of things? The things of nature. Tune in for a transporting shimmer.

Reel calm

That was the light. Now for the dark – a trio of lo-viz highlights.

SNOW GHOSTS: Rip

Industrialised beats push Hannah Cartwright’s vocal haunt into a dense, dark, edge-land trip that tips a nod to JK Broadrick’s heavyweight grim. Rip is a dream going wrong, the kind you definitely want to wake from. Run. Away. It all drags downwards.

PAULA TEMPLE: Post-Scarcity Anarchism

Hi-energy electronic DOOOOM …. you know how Underworld’s King of Snake has that white-hot scrape of a subway train hurling past at full tilt? Take that vibe, pound it heavier and pack those unstopping carriages with no-soul people-oids, aka the bodysnatched. Now you’re in the Post-Scarcity Anarchism zone. And no, the wonk euphoria ending does not lift the tension. Temple, next stop.

RAKETKANON: Ricky

RKTKN #2 was and is a non-sticky album – noise rock shot through with quiet-loud spaces and a bad-tripping carnival gothic. Short on hooks, big on stubborn twists, these Belgians are very much their own thing and now we’ve got a new album, RKTKN #3. From it, here’s Ricky doing what Raketkanon do but thickened by a synth underlay. Somewhere near Shortparis and New York art noise, perhaps?

And if you never knew you needed desert trance, electronics and guitar distortion from south Tunisia, wrap your e-holes round Moola Nefta by Ifriqiyya Electrique. Intense.

‘til next time!

PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS: live review

Posted on April 14, 2019 by kevinsmusicblog

PIGSX7 AT THE BULLINGDON, OXFORD, APRIL 10, 2019
One of the most anticipated Oxford gigs of the year, surely. The Bullingdon is sold out, the vibe is super charged and the fact that the support act gets a bigger crowd than many headliners here tells you that something is very definitely in the air.
And the support is? A duo. Mesange. Violin plus guitar drones and loops. Intriguing mix. Ethereal Myrkur meets wannabe Boris. Stage presence … less convincing. But the music, yes. Violin takes the lead and soars. Fresh. An ambient, gothic contrast to what’s to come.
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs kick off like it’s a King of Cowards run-through: GNT first, The Shockmaster second, and by doing that, the gig is already won. Shockmaster was one of THE riffs of last year, definitely one of my favourites, and to get this slow-moving bruiser in your face is a proper highlight. And do they tweak the riff, adding a bit of time-shifting drag on the back end? Wrong-footing bastards. Nice.
At this point, Matt Baty breaks out of his slow-moving zen intensity to admit that at this stage of a gig, he usually starts complaining about being too hot or having too much smoke on stage or whatever else is bugging his moanself. Not tonight, though. “There’s air-con up here – fucking brilliant! Top marks Bullingdon. And there was Scott Walker on the PA before the gig. SCOTT WALKER. Again, top marks Bullingdon. You’ll get a 5-star* review from us on TripAdvisor.”
We get a new song, ‘co-written with Jay Z and Beyonce’ – which packs a huge hooky riff – before something old (Sweet Relief) and a pair of KoC staples (The Gloamer and Cake of Light) take us home. Crowd is bouncing. Band has one more for us.

“You’ll get your money’s worth, it’s 10 minutes long. It’s a fucking workout.”
It can only be A66, right?
And so it is, a full-pelt space-rock burn-up to the end and a ringing earworm for the rest of the week. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs: the People’s Champions. Over and out.
*later downgraded to 4 stars because, “It’s bloody hot up here.”
A couple of Pigsx7 album reviews this way

PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS: Feed the Rats

Posted on April 7, 2019 by kevinsmusicblog

PIGSX7 OXFORD GIG APRIL 10, 2019. HERE’S WARM-UP REVIEW #2

Psychopomp 15.06
Sweet Relief 4.39
Icon 17.00

Look at those numbers. Look at the bloody LENGTH of it. Exciting, eh? Especially when you’ve already capitulated to Pigsx7’s debut release The Wizard and the Seven Swines, which is itself a 22-minute purge of damaged psyche and slamming riffs.

Debut full album Feed the Rats looks like it does a similar thing, even before you play it. This is a Good Sign because Wizard’s stretched-out scorch was a win win win win win win win. Can Rats match it?

Feed the Rats: ugly thrills

With Psychopomp, you don’t have time to think about that – straight in with a no messing, bam-bam-bam riff and Baty in immediate full vocal hurl. It’s an abrupt, Pigsx7-style wake-up that picks up exactly where The Wizard and The Seven Swines disintegrated.

Thing is, your head tells you it’ll calm into a purer Sabbath-influenced groove

no chance. Psychopomp shakes that kind of lame-o conditioning right out, and Pigsx7 aren’t Sabbath knock-offs anyway, are they? Too rough, too jam-based, too psyche/d. You sense that, like it is for many of us, Year Zero for direct heavy influences is somewhere in the 90s at the noisier, more ragged end of the desert/psyche/drone scenes.

Psychopomp rams all that stuff together in a quart-hour charge: early Desert Sessions twists (flickers of Fatso Jetson?), Heads-like space-rock afterburn, Kong-sized mega riffs (six minutes in, ‘kin HELL) and brief Boris-worshipping ponderosa are all there, shoved in a bag and dragged without care up a northern peak. Bruising. By the time you reach pomp’s end you’ve had four minutes of squalling heavy charge and galactic wah. Fucking magic.

Did that meet expectations?

‘course it did. We know what we’re getting by now. Sweet Relief does what it says, but it’s relief in length only. Rammed with tarmac-splitting bounce, it shoves you through to a storm-force battering from all sides.

The beyond-massive Icon starts with a riff classick, Baty gets buried by guitar leads, the rhythm’s uber-tight and we’re caked in Pigs glory all over again – an over-amplified shitstorm you don’t wanna leave. The last five minutes is pained repeat and jarring battery:

“HOLD ME ….

ICON ….. FESS”

Meaning? Dunno. But the lyrical fragments that come through match the music’s exhale, and even without knowing the words, Baty’s delivery gushes existential.

In a 2018 round-up, buzzed by the enormity of King of Cowards, I wrote that Feed the Rats perhaps didn’t quite match The Wizard and the Seven Swines. Wrong. The Wizard crash landed from nowhere and had surprise on its side. Feed the Rats had summat to live up to and it went for the Full Ugly: gut-busting endurance with a soul-cleansing pay-off.

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs. Worth repeating: it’s physical.

File next to Gnod, Sleep, The Heads, Part Chimp, Drore, Rollins Band, early daze Monster Magnet
Feed the Rats: released 2017 on Rocket Recordings, get it on Bandcamp
No time for a King of Cowards review before the gig, so we’ll see you on the other side. Unless Shockmaster bulldozers us into oblivion (pleeease). Pigsx7 live review here

PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS: The Wizard and the Seven Swines

Posted on April 6, 2019 by kevinsmusicblog

PIGSX7 PLAY OXFORD THIS WEEK. HERE’S THE FIRST OF A COUPLE OF REVIEWS TO GET US WARMED UP

Nothing says WE’VE ARRIVED quite like sticking a 20-foot monolith outside your house on the day you move in, and this track is very much on those making-a-statement lines – an immovable, rough-edged pasting of fried motorik, asteroidal burnout and howling catharsis. Punk Sabbath for the post-Sleep generation? Welcome to the first shot from Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs.

But if you got here by GNT or some other radio darling from album #2 King of Cowards, strap in and gear up for something far less concise.

This little brutey clocks in at 22 minutes. All one track of it.

the-wizard-and-the-seven-swines

Prog? No. Primal? Shit yeah. The opening riff is coiled, up on the balls of its feet and ready to shift, like rock-ist Oneida launching one of their head-fucking long-forms but, as you’d expect, much rougher in its horizon-bound momentum.

Then comes Baty. Matt Baty. The Voice. Less a vocal than a hurl into the Spent Zone, he forces total lung capacity into every word and is vein-bulger hoarse before he even gets going, yet it’s not a macho metal hard-fest scream or anything contrived like that. His is an all-too-human bellow and is a massive part of what makes this band the way it is. No-one else sounds like them.

So, after the opening repetitions and moto rhythmics, what happens in 22 minutes of TWATSS?

(after two years with this track, I literally only just noticed that acronym when I typed it here. An accident? Maybe. But then again, these guys also have/had a band called Khunnt, so who knows?)

5 minutes: RIFF DROP. Floor-opening bottom end, a hulking motherfucker bulked by four-string filth, lifted by post-rock arcs and then fully grooved by insistent badass bass.

By now, Pigsx7 are beginning to sound apocalyptic. We’re in a transition to somewhere – or steeling ourselves for something.

8 minutes: ANOTHER RIFF DROP. Heavy as – ah shit, it’s gone again. Is this the bridge? As if. But change is a coming, you can smell it.

10 minutes: PSYCH’S OUT. Spacier, less dense, almost krautrocking were it not for Baty’s clipped yelps and barks.

12 minutes: SLEEP. The slowdown. The beating. A one-chord pounding, straight outta Dopesmoker and (we now know) the sound of Pigs to come.

18 minutes: FALSE ENDER. One last gasp in this endless end and we’re almost back to that Oneida trance thing, but by now everything looks and feels different.

We’ve been through the mill. And so have Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs. It’s like they came of age during the track, starting out lithe but ending it burned, hardened, scarred, thicker set, complete. They’ve been somewhere and taken us with ’em, but no-one quite knows where. It’s all about the journey, man – and the sheer bloody force of it all: a turbulent, never-ending blast. Whatever it is that’s driving Pigsx7, it’s made a merry hell of a first release.

How can they follow it? Feed the Rats review this way

The Wizard and the Seven Swines: released in 2013, get it on Bandcamp

Cover image taken from my download from Pigsx7 bandcamp site

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