LIST: Pig Destroyer's Discography from Worst to Best

    It may be easy to misconstrue any metal band out of Virginia as being 'from Richmond', and while the legacy of figures such as Dave Brockie and the piles of Tony Foresta's cocaine loom large across the area, there is a lot more to my home state than just the obvious. You think an introduction like this would be saved for a list of '100 greatest underground groups from VA', and not another hugely famous metal band. Well, that's probably a good idea. I'll keep it in mind.

Now from worst to best: PIG DESTROYER

Head Cage (2018):
    Highly polished. Its Guitar Hero 3 accessible riffs and overly cast backing vocal line-up would’ve been the coolest shit in 2007.

Mass & Volume (2013):
    The band’s previous forays into doom and ambience leaves Mass & Volume feeling lackluster. An incidental statement piece on the overuse of recreational drugs.

Explosions in Ward 6 (1998):
    Low and not slow. Perversity and gore run rampant on Pig Destroyer’s 1998 debut. A quintessential grindcore album that set the stage for Pig Destroyer’s later experimentation and cinéma de l'abstrait approach.

Natasha (2008):
    Every long dragging minute is perfectly tailored in depth and depravity.

Book Burner (2012):
    The creation of Book Burner should’ve been viewed as the omen to what would eventually lead to Head Cage in 2018. The classic line up would shatter, with drummer Bryan Harvey being kicked out of the band after a falling out over disinterest in shorter, grind material. Harvey was briefly replaced by David Witte of Municipal Waste before Witte had to quit due to injury and other obligations. Pig Destroyer finally landed Adam Jarvis as their new drummer, much to Book Burner’s benefit.

    Tracks like Baltimore Strangler are a good example of an edited, clicky drum sound that is prevalent on Book Burner, and would the basis of their next studio album Head Cage in 2018. While Scott Hull’s work in Agoraphobic Nosebleed both as a guitarist and drum machine programmer is incredible, the drum machine tonality of the Jarvis’s work on this album can at times feel like a damper on the brutal powerhouse work he puts into this album. Slight so-called ‘errors’ are human, and a more organic approach would have benefited the song writing on this album greatly.

The Octagonal Stairway (2020):
    A strong return to form while also exploring more atmospheric sound territory ala 2008’s Natasha. Heavy low end mixing and the swirling guitar riffs we’ve come to expect from Scott Hull. Its lack of group vocals and features allow Octagonal Stairway’s artistic direction and depth come through, making this feel worthy grindcore. This album leaves the dumb party metal back with their VA neighbors Municipal Waste.

Terrifyer (2004):
    Don’t be fooled into getting any digital copy that doesn’t come with the Japanese bonus-tracks (there's a lot of connections to Japan on this blog, isn’t there?). Terrifyer is the logical progression from 2001’s Prowler in The Yard. Bigger riffs, longer songs, and more groove oriented material. Don’t get me wrong, this is one of their best albums in all sorts of ways. On the other hand, it’s lack of artistic intentions with the album cover (as determined by a 2019 interview with Kerrang!) are disappointing. While the final image may be shocking and its composition otherwise pleasing, it takes an overdose of privilege to look past the callous attitude toward the well being of women.

    An argument can almost always be made for artistic intent backed by a bigger dialogue within the piece or the work of an artist over their career. But Pig Destroyer and frontman JR Hayes offer no such dialogue, no such explanation. When asked in a Kerrang! interview whether the figure is connected to anything more, Hayes says “she is whoever you want her to be.” At this point, it would be in bad faith to retroactively piece together a dialogue from abstraction.

Phantom Limb (2007):
    Unlike Head Cage, this album was actually released in 2007 and doesn’t quite sound like it. Phantom Limb ultimately continues along the path of Terrifyer, though with more syncopation and breakdowns than thrash metal guitar solos. The lyrical and atmospheric content seems to give the listener a more grounded world to explore within the album, and closing soundscape ‘Hidden’ brings the album to a deathly quite end.

Prowler in The Yard (2001):
    If you were to only ever hear one Pig Destroyer album, make it Prowler in The Yard. Fast, angular, and intense on many fronts, Prowler’s excursions into the atmospheric helped pave the way for the band’s later sonic cinematic efforts. The album was recorded in drummer Brian Harvey’s basement on 4-track, which makes the engineering of the original album even more impressive given the distinguishable instrumentation and artistic direction within the production itself. Get yourself a good pair of headphones and enjoy every abrasive moment that Prowler in The Yard has to offer.

REVIEW: Shorty Can't Eat Books - Shorty Can't Eat Books (2014)

    Back in pre-covid days, as I faintly recall, Shorty Can’t Eat Books was introduced to me through a local barista (and I believe former member of the band) one morning before work. There is not much to be found on Shorty Can’t Eat Books. An Asheville, NC band whose only release was this 2014 self-titled album recorded at Hi Z / Lo Z Studio (now defunct) located in the back of Static Age Records. A music video for instrumental ruckus-romp surf punk song Breakdown was made and posted on Youtube to little fanfare a week before the album’s release. A sense of camaraderie may or may not have been shared over the laborious process of stop-motion animating. Such interactions are seen through rose-colored glasses now.

    Tracks like I Was That Guy and Baby Baby are perfect examples of a specific vein of punk music that thrives within southern DIY circuits. Too honest for for indie hipsters and too weird for punks nationwide (with exception to the Midwestern scene, godbless’em). Essentially, the musical equivalent to The Captain & Casey Show.

    After three tracks of fake-jazz verses and patio lounging surf diddies, it could be best described as the meeting of The Minutemen and Southern Culture on The Skids. That is of course until the aggression and secret agent-pastiche of Breakdown and Dumb Town break up the albums seemingly established route. Breakdown may be the longest (2 mins, 20 secds) the album goes with out sleazy ska horns, clunky no wave piano smashing, or (quite honestly) goofy (but fitting) bongo percussion parts.

    Shorty Can’t Eat Books may be the quintessential Asheville band. They released one self titled album that fell on deaf ears, remembered only by long-time locals and dedicated scene goers. Their influences range incredibly and pastiche may be one of the three main ingredients. But through this is a great sense of honesty. This album is almost unforgivably North Carolinian. Lazy days on the patio, weird folk influences, and a lack of direct aggression that shows itself instead through scorned (but never embittered) melancholy.

    As Asheville city officials and the tourism industry continues to kill and run out its locals through neglect (“sacrifice zone”), lobbyist interference, and lack of accountability, it’s important that outsiders remember what actually makes Asheville special; the locals. The locals who have created a sense of community, who have created the art, albums, and cool spaces you inevitably run them out of.

    This angst over the city was certainly felt by many around this time, and maybe now more than ever after the empty promises of reparations to Asheville’s black community and the lack of support for local businesses. All of this makes closing track Nuclear Doowop’s melancholic desperation feel more like an omen and less a feeling of its time.

 

 

For fans of: The Minutemen, Polvo, The Big Boys

Like Shorty Can't Eat Books? Give these a listen: Nature Boys, Pleasures of The Ultraviolent, The Krektones

 

LIST: A Proposal for 80s Worship

    As if standing in stark contrast to taco-laser-cat t-shirts and 'millennial whoop' overdosing (how noble), the rise of 80s worship in the mid-teens has brought back the worst of bad hair days and their musical counterparts. So if you’re looking to spice up your new-found identity or if you’ve finally realized that Africa by Toto isn't worth it, than this list is for you!


Soft Cell - The Art of Falling Apart (1983)

 

    Soft Cell (a band that, yes, has released more than 2 songs) started in 1978 and rose to prominence in the early 80s with their hit cover of Gloria Jone’s 1964 single ‘Tainted Love’. But enough of that. 1983 would see the release of Soft Cell’s second full-length release The Art of Falling Apart and the glory of it’s titular closing track. ‘The Art’ is a song about drugs that isn’t trying to be anything other than a song about drugs. Big synth stabs and an under swelling reverb makes this a ‘no duh’ for anyone looking to dip their toes in the weird and whacky world of the 80s (FOETUS is only a few steps away from here).


Naked Eyes - Promises, Promises (1983)

 

    There is always something there to remind me that there were much better songs on Naked Eyes’s 1983 album Burning Bridges. The best album to ever be recorded at Abbey Road Studios (Flippant? Maybe. The truth? Definitely), Burning Bridges gave us great songs like its titular track, When The Lights Go Out, Fortune and Fame, and Voices in My Head. But it’s Promises Promises with it’s minimal production, back and forth melody, and vague funk influences that rounds out this album as one of the best closing tracks on a pop album ever. Naked Eyes is 2 British guys, a Fairlight CMI, and a lot of vague romantic dance tracks. Do I need say more? Well, except to clarify I mean that entirely as a good thing (in this case).


Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - So In Love (1985)

 

     So In Love may not be stupid enough to meme-ify, but it’s an emotionally powerful song with all the melancholic nostalgia seeding you could possibly want. In this dreamlike state, you may feel as if your feet will lose rhythm to it’s smooth dance beat as you float away off the dance floor. Don’t worry, no modern DJ will be playing this any time soon, and your drinking that night will likely leave you face first on the floor. Look, were they a great band? No, not really. But if we’re going to collectively obsess over singular 80s pop tracks, OMD has all the trappings (and just enough good songs) to get a mention here.


Sharon Redd - Can You Handle It (1980)

    While you were busy fetishizing the 80s, disregarding the AIDS epidemic and the CIA starting a racialized drug war, black and/or queer people were out there making some of the best music of the decade. If you’re looking for peak 80s (in a good way) you need to check out boogie music, which let's be honest, is total pop. Just because it’s not Madonna-white doesn’t make it not so. So, can you handle it?

    You may think, ‘why Sharon Redd? Why not something even more 80s like Chaka Khan, Cherrelle, Evelyn King, etc.?’ Those artists are amazing, but they’ve all had second-winds in the age of music streaming and cock and bull ‘I grew up with this’ nostalgia boasts. Either way, if you’re a trend sycophant than you’ve probably stopped reading a while ago. So kick back and enjoy this 6min+ jammer.


General Public - Anxious

 

    Why are we culturally pining for the 1980s to begin with? Has sociopolitical pressures made us look for a ‘simpler time’?  Is it 70s babies grasping for a time that they were the forefront of commercial culture? Can we simply blame all of it on vaporwave and Stranger Things? Who knows. Maybe culture is dying. In a press-play world that awards content and volume over quality and craft, why would anyone take the time to enrich their lives culturally? It may be my upbringing that put General Public on this list, but if the 80s are relevant now, than a track like Anxious is more relevant than ever.