Labels: Coextinction – Solar Flare
Review by: Alex Hannan
The new 10″ from PIGS kicks off with a textbook chunky noise-rock bassline, and considering their pedigree – UNSANE’s bassist plays guitar here – the apple hasn’t fallen too far from the tree. Basslines are solid and methodical, guitar work dissonant and spiky, vocals rasping and tense. First song “Gaffe” has a mathy tinge like a less curmudgeonly SHELLAC, patterns interlocking and playing off each other before the chorus brings the loose ends together. Rhythms are switched up just enough to keep you on your toes.
Second track “Elo kiddies” takes a catchy CHEAP TRICK song, sands off the glam campery and adds a little more spike in the guitars for an effect close to HOT SNAKES’ “Salton City”. The very ’70s Glitter-esque lyrics provide additional sleaze factor. “Hello kiddies, hello kiddies / whatcha you gonna do when your head’s exploding? / So you missed some school / you know that school’s for fools…”
“If I’m in luck” rides a winding guitar line into sludgy fuzzed-out riffing, garnished with stoner flourishes, twangy guitar leads and trills. Some neat guitar dropouts break up the texture. Its latter half feels bloated, though, the riff becoming a holding pattern beneath a guitar noisefest which feels perfunctory – more “need a noisy bit here” than “I have this great idea!”.
PIGS show stylistic range in the three different facets of noise-rock they’re tackling, but each song is quite predictable within its style, combining fairly familiar types of ideas already road-tested by predecessors. On the strength of these tracks the band seem professional but safe – although they muster a heavy and abrasive sound, I’m left unmoved by what they’ve done with it.