Just listen to the whole damned thing
Upon writing this review I stopped referring to Prowler In The Yard as
an album, and used the word realm in its omission. A sickeningly hateful,
unashamed realm, blanketing nothing, leaving the bloodied toolshed unaltered
for the forensics team. No forced Cannibal Corpse or Broken Hope or Devourment
album has ever felt like a point-a-to-point-b visual transcript of a chainsaw
massacre. Everything, from the freakish, grisly front cover (courtesy of
super-talented Paul Booth, the tattooist with a waitlist longer than a Sleep
album), to the surreal, drugged intro and outro, and the unshakeable nightmare
sandwiched in between, is unsettling and feverish. Lyricist/vocalist/obvious-creative-writing-major
J.R. Hayes envisions this realm through shivers of ghastly images, captured through
bulbs of flash photography, screams bursting into white blindness. Scott Hull,
the sole guitarist (no bass) is the deceiver, wrapping his large, barbed-wire
guitar strings around the ears many times, audibly resulting in what sounds
like a trio of axes. Rounding out the trio with spastic, hyperblasting drummer
Brian Harvey, Piggy D defies not only the conventions of death metal and
grindcore (I still don’t know what to call this realm), but defies the logic of
how many and how and a band should work. Twenty-two tracks on this realm and I
can’t tell when the first eighteen start and stop, which is very intentional,
as sometimes, a good story should remain unpredictable, all while Hull’s riffs,
its actors, are too convincing. One thumb down for song Trojan Whore, a too-close-for-comfort
rip-off of Honey Bucket by The Melvins, an obscurity only those who nitpick will
despise. Favorite track: Hyperviolet, a perfect, abbreviated summation of said
realm, for those both squeamish and in a rush.
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