Why Pig Destroyer Is Awesome

The beauty of Pig Destroyer lies in their simplicity. 1 Singer, 1 Guitarist, 1 Drummer. From that you get a wall of sound more "brutal" than what most metal bands who have twice the instrumental power can come up with.

Pig Destroyer's 2007 album, 'Phantom Limb' is the album I'm most familiar with and was the first one I heard. It's a delightful mix of death metal, grindcore (often call deathgrind) and I think I can feel a thrash influence in there somewhere (I've never been good at/big on defining metal beyond one sub genre to be honest).

From Phantom Limb, Thought Crime Spree:



That song is doesn't have a what I'd consider a blast-beat it's just very heavy on the double-bass drumming. This uncharacteristic of grindcore (perhaps why I chose it as an example), but does exemplify the incredible sound that Pig Destroyer produce with only 2 (or 3 including vokills) instruments.

I regressed through their discography, hearing 2004s 'Terrifyer' only once or twice and then settling on 2001s 'Prowler in the Yard'. The difference in production is noticeable, 'Prowler in the Yard' sounds quite unpolished. The songs are also a lot shorter and sharper, this is the grindcore sound that we're all a lot more familiar with. Here is the beginning of this album, one of my favourite album openings of all (read along with the lyrics).

From Prowler in the Yard, tracks 1 and 2, Jennifer/Cheerleader Corpses:



Jennifer wrestled her friend playfully to the ground infront of the snowcone stand and began licking at the girls eyeballs, as if they were sugar cubes. Their bodies convulsed and flailed with an almost seizure like intensity. At times their pale limbs seeming to shift back and forth from one torso to the other. A crowd gathered almost immediately to watch these two girls tie and untie their bodies like a pair of pit-vipers. They were confused, or concerned, or shocked, or aroused, or all of the above. But no-one dared interfere with the performance. Jennifer's long ashen hair hung down concealing the girls face like a curtain around a hospital bed. No one had any idea that the girls eyes were revolving under her ruby tongue. "This is disgusting, it's pornography" exclaimed a pasty slut white woman in a fur coat, vanilla ice-cream smeared across her double chin like a money shot. Counting a balding professor type in his mid-forties, his left hand stuffed crassly down the front of his pants "No, no, no. This is beautiful, this is art."

I can't help but think that opening is analogous to metal in general. To some it is a grotesque evolution of music, to others it is art. I was going to say that PD may not have evolved, but merely refined. After listening to a few of the tracks from the earlier album - 'Prowler in the Yard' and comparing it to later tracks, I can say that they have evolved in every sense. The music is more mature, it interacts with the lyrics (from Phantom Limb - "Mood swings like an axe, into those around me" and bang the music shifts), the album art work is incredible rather than somewhat predictable.

Pig Destroyer is on of my favourite bands. The only person who has read this that may have a chance of liking them will be Dean.

- Dogman