Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – Death Hilarious | Album Review

Georgie psychedelic-stoner-metallers Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs return with their fifth album, Death Hilarious.

The tone is set with the grimy thrash of ‘Blockage’ which comes crashing through the speakers like a ploughing into the side of a house. There’s a palpable vitality to the performances on Death Hilarious, especially on the pacier tracks like ‘Stitches’ and ‘Coyote Call’, which are bound to result in an uptick in speeding tickets being issued should people listen to this album in their cars. 

‘Detroit’ is a gruelling sweat drenched fever dream of a track, with Matt Baty describing sleepless nights in hotels listening to couples rutting in neighbouring rooms over discordant guitars and lolloping drums, akin to that uncomfortable feeling that Chat Pile are so good at conjuring.

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs’ guitarist and producer Sam Grant has said that while the previous album, Land of Sleeper was conceived as an immersive headphones experience, their intention with Death Hilarious was to provide ‘a slap in the face.’ That’s an understatement; it doesn’t so much as slap you, but grabs you by the shoulders and sticks the nut right on you. The amps and fuzz pedals are cranked to oblivion, the drums hit like a bare knuckle boxer’s gut punches and Matt Baty’s vocals are so much further forward in the mix than they’ve ever been, giving a real urgency to his gritty delivery and self-deprecating lyrical content. These are some of Matt’s darkest and most personal lyrics, but as the title Death Hilarious would suggest, there’s a wry sense of humour running throughout. 

And yet, in spite of the absolute cacophony that the quintet are conjuring, everything is surprisingly well-balanced. Nothing feels like it’s fighting for its position, and it’s actually quite easy to pick out the subtle layers of intricate detail that are present behind the wall of noise, a harmony here or a tastefully placed piano part there. 

While a couple of the tracks do push past the seven or eight minute mark, it doesn’t feel like there’s an ounce of fat anywhere on this album, other than in the hefty guitar tones. It’s clear the post-pandemic years of relentlessly touring their previous two albums Viscerals and Land of Sleeper have enabled Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs to tighten up their chops and hone their songwriting prowess. 

If any other meat and potatoes stoner metal band were to lay down the pentatonic simplicity of riffs like ‘Collider’ they’d be dismissed for being derivative but the sheer class with which Adam Sykes and Sam Grant put together these pieces and play off each other with interesting harmonies elevate the songs far beyond your average Sabbath worshippers. 

A real stroke of genius comes right out of left field on the grinding slab of noise rock that is ‘Glib Tongued’, when suddenly El-P, one half of alt-hip-hop royalty Run The Jewels swings by to lay down a verse. He’s not phoning it in either, his bars are up there with anything he’s done with Killer Mike. 

More than any other song in their career, if someone asked you to recommend a song that encapsulates what Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs are about, it would have to be ‘The Wyrm’. It has everything, from its psychedelic freakout of an intro to its head down, turbocharged main riff and the concrete slab of doom in its midsection, with some extra sprinkles of sonic magic thrown in for good measure. Eight minute closer ‘Toecurler’ begins with a languorous blues motif before descending into a nightmare circus waltz replete with unhinged chromatic riffs that are underpinned by a slightly out of tune piano that’ll have you checking over your shoulder to check you’re not about to be bludgeoned by a psychopathic clown. That sleazy blues riff is brought back in right at the end to bookend the track and calm the jitters brought on by the main body of the track. 

And there concludes what is arguably the best album that Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs have put to their frankly ridiculous name to so far. Hilarious they may be, but this is an album to be taken very seriously indeed.