Pig's Blood - "Pig's Blood" (Godz ov War Productions, 2017)

Band: Pig's Blood
Title: Pig's Blood
Genre: Black/Death metal with Bestial metal influences
Year: 30th June 2017
Time: 36 min
Rating: 76/100












When Greg of the small Polish label Godz ov War Productions, 4 months ago circa, sent to me his last promo kits, I stumbled on a death metal band called Pig's Blood. As sometimes happens to me, this kind of sanguinary name was very enough to draw my attention, so I downloaded the promo kit of their debut album with the same name. Unfortunately, I started to listen to that only in these last days, and I have to say that it has been a pleasant surprise also because I discovered that their genre of reference isn't the pure death metal but something very close to a style that I adore. So, here you are the debut album of Pig's Blood, 4 scoundrels from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that released, before that, a demo in 2015.


As first thing, let's say that this album, recorded in February 2017 by Greg Wilkinson at the Ear Hammer Studios, is composed of only 10 songs, whose 5 of them are taken from the aforementioned demo (which are "Death March Insanity", "Torches of War and Retribution", "The First Step in Making Things Right", "Deniers of the Root" and "Rats"). Secondly, Pig's Blood plays a brutal and hammering black/death metal very close to the bestial style of this genre, even if they haven't the same ultra-chaotic aura of it also because the guitar solos are very few. Despite this, these fuckin' maniacs share many things with the bestial black/death metal genre as, for example: the war metal atmospheres, an amazing wall of sound made of incredibly cavernous guitars, a vocal department divided between phlegmy screams and growls with nothing human in a total Necroholocaust way, some very violent and abrupt restarts that could make proud monsters like Black Witchery, or levels of brutality sometimes really demented. But the fact is that Pig's Blood are a band enough imaginative that presents various influences throughout the album.

In particular, the black metal side of Pig's Blood, after the devastating massacre of "Misanthrope Absolute" (which is the only number with a real guitar solo), is strongly listenable starting from "Iron Justice". Then, there is the doom metal, exemplified perfectly by "Taste the Fucking Poison" with its vortexes of horror, and there is need to say that these 4 war metal maniacs are really good to create tension through the slower tempos in order to spew forth excellent climaxes. But there are also some traces of thrash metal, like in the massive mid-tempos of "Torches of War and Retribution" or in some blasting moments of "First Step in Making Things Right". And, incredibly, you can hear in "Rats (This World is a Sewer)" also some passagges very close to the slow and occult black metal typical of a band like Beherit. In brief, the ideas in this album are many but, fortunately, the style of Pig's Blood is always homogeneous and coherent with its main features.

Now, I have to confess that my favorite tracks are those with a guitar solo or similar. I am talking about "Misanthrope Absolute", "Death March Insanity" (that has some truly killer riffs and also a brutality totally excessive) and, especially, "The Age of Endless War", structured perfectly and strong of a pseudo-guitar solo totally hallucinated and dissonant. For me, it's a shame that "Pig's Blood" doesn't ends with an amazing song like "The Age of Endless War" but, instead, the final number is "There Will Be No Law" (what a Bolt Thrower-title!), considered by me less effective to end the hostilities with the nuclear fireworks!

So, my first impression about the fantastic moniker Pig's Blood has been correct, ergo I was right to give a chance to their debut album. This one isn't surely a masterpiece since there are some possibilities for an improvement  while I think that the band has to play more guitar solos. But, anyway, I consider fantastic the idea to mix the complexity of the US old-school death metal, the heaviness of Bolt Thrower and the extreme barbarism of the bestial black/death metal in a single solution, spewing forth also a good creativity by taking inspirations from different styles without creating a dispersive mess. And now, you have to know that Pig's Blood, enough active on the live front, are preparing for a US tour that will last from 20th to 28th October starting from Detroit to end with Indianapolis.

Please, make a donation to Timpani allo Spiedo 'zine through the PayPal button at your right, above the cover artwork of my upcoming book about proto-black metal. Thank you very much!

Tracklist:

1 - Misanthrope Absolute
2 - Iron Justice
3 - Taste the Fucking Poison
4 - Torches of War and Retribution
5 - Rats (This World is a Sewer
6 - Death March Insanity
7 - The Age of Endless War
8 - First Step in Making Things Right
9 - Deniers of the Root
10 - There Will Be No Law

Line-up:

Horrible Person - vocals/bass
Infernal Scumbag - guitars
Overlord of the Under Dwellers - guitars
Drug Pervert Death Hammer - drums

BandCamp: http://pigsblood.bandcamp.com/
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/commandmoreblood/?fref=ts
Godz ov War Prod: http://godzovwar.com/