Pig City is here to shred your ears to blood-soaked ribbons: that’s the best introduction that remotely expresses their unique ferocity. The Arizonan quartet, formed in 2016, exude all manner of displeasure on their debut full-length, Terminal Decline, out today on King of the Monsters Records and To Live A Lie. The album’s nine tracks slice through their length with breathless abandon, surging and roaring with serrated exuberance.
The tone-setting opening “Hunter” dives face-first into the roiling acid bath “Hunted,” a swarming powerviolent mass infesting every second of Terminal Decline. The tracks warm themselves with D-beat’s discomforting grime, coating each with audible malice, yet making each track more addictive than the last.
The spirit at work is undeniably hardcore, with the anthemic seige of “Blood Money” creeping into a slow-churning gloom aligned with Eyehategod’s existential suffering. This same despair is channelled earlier on “Manufactured Misery” and “Melancholic Omega,” feral songs crawling on all fours, fangs glistening with murderous intent.
These slower moments define the album’s second half, forcing their foreboding, realistic vistas into your skull with rumbling bass/drum synergy, prowling guitars and anguished vocals. There is much being said here, with the music telegraphing these emotions with painterly blacks, greys and crimson flourishes.
“We wrote Terminal Decline at a weird time for all of us, frankly. Battles with sobriety, unemployment, gender identity and just grappling with the crippling reality that our planet is dying played a huge role in the overall sound and lyrical content of the record,” said guitarist Dylan Decarlo on the album’s themes.
"There is also an underlying theme of despair and anger at the state and all who truly believe the absurd notion that reforms to capitalism and policing all while voting for moderate democrats will somehow save us from institutions that thrive off of exploitation.”
Terminal Decline is available today from King of the Monsters Records and To Live A Lie, and can be streamed in its entirety above.
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