At its best,
Pig Destroyer
recalls
Brutal Truth
's most inspired moments (see
Need to Control
or
Sounds of the Animal Kingdom
), trading heavily in funeral-blast
grindcore
spasms.
Painter of Dead Girls
collects the band's split EPs into one self-contained 17-minute compilation, all songs recorded between 1999 and 2003. The group at times channels
the Melvins
(the
doom
-
sludge
moments of
"Patterns of Failure"
), spastic
punk rock
(
"Fuck You Up and Get High"
), and schizoid
hardcore
(the chugging breakdowns of
"Forgotten Child"
), the songs passing by like scarred, twisted
metal
Armageddon landscapes at mach 3. Covers of
the Stooges
'
"Down in the Streets"
(surprisingly conventional) and
Helmet
's
"In the Meantime"
(murky and corroded) round out the collection with a nudge and a wink, slowing things down enough to make you realize that most of
speeds by, quite entertainingly, lickety-split. Sure, this is a collection of odds'n'sods, but it adheres to
's nasty standards of excellence, and anyone who sunk his incisors into the deliciously raw and bloody meat of
Prowler in the Yard
will want to track it down. ~ John Serba