Phantom Limb

This is my first Pig Destroyer album (sadly). I've never really listened to grindcore other than Napalm Death and a few Cattle Decapitation songs, so I really wasn't sure what to expect from this album. I got it simply because a friend of mine mentioned listening to them and since I couldn't decide which CD to buy of some bands I already owned albums for, I decided to try a new band.

When I first stuck the CD in, I didn't know what to think really. It was definitely grind...but almost incoherent. I really wanted to like the band, so I kept listening, but overall, I wasn't too impressed. I got home finally and, for some reason, I just felt compelled to listen to this album. My ears still weren't very tuned to this sort of extreme metal, so I found it hard to decipher much of anything. Later that night, I stuck on my headphones and kept listening (I have a feeling there is some subliminal messages on the CD, because I can't explain my drive to listen to a CD which I really didn't enjoy) and I was amazed at what I heard.

When the music is so up close and right in my ears, everything seemed sort of cleared up. The first thing that impressed me was the guitar work. Oh, the guitar! It was so heavy and so technical, but with an odd quirk every now and again. It wasn't your typical chugga-chugga/technical riffing/breakdown guitar. Instead, Scott Hull (who instantly became one of my favorite guitarists) would constantly shred away and then throw in a chord from left field which was completely out of place, but still fit with the music. The immense brutality Scott Hull has on this album is stunning. Especially since he's covering for the non-existent bassist!

The drums are also great. Totally chaotic, but the drummer still manages to keep a beat throughout it all. And the vocals are amazing as well. Nothing revolutionary like I'd consider the guitar work to be, but they are good and fit perfectly.

All in all, this album is not one that you can just sit down with once and give a clear deliberation. You have to hear everything it has to offer before making judgements. I can't get enough of it now. Hell, I sleep to this music. I guess I don't know what to say. It's grindcore at it's finest (because I can't imagine it gets much better than this). You want a spastic drummer with more talent than a DCI drumline? Pig Destroyer has one. Do you want one of the most talented and brutal guitarists ever to make your ears bleed. Crank up Pig Destroyer. Or how about a vocalist who will make your mother cry from terror? Pig Destroyer has the answer. With an album this good, it's hard to really analyze it. It's just GOOD! I can't find a place where I would say "A cool guitar fill would fit here" or "He should've screamed a bit more" or "The drummer really needs to clean up his playing" because it's so impecable. Then why only a 90%? Because I'm hard as fuck to really impress, so a 100% is only attained if a band is so amazingly legendary that every emo kid does actually kill themself or I rashly rate them thinking whatever band is the best thing since macaroni and cheese, only to realize that they were only very good, but not the best.

Pig Destroyer is the best.