Review Summary: i hope you die in a hotel fire
“I sent him the Righteous Pigs demo, and I didn’t expect anyone to actually like it, ‘cause it was really like our own thing.”
-Mitch Harris in
Extremity Retained: Notes From the Death Metal Underground
It’s difficult to talk about Righteous Pigs without mentioning their place in extreme metal canon so I’ll get that out of the way. After
Our Demo in 1987 (and getting a label), these guys adopted more structure and complexity in their music and had developed their songwriting a lot by the second of their two full-lengths. (Guitarist Mitch Harris jumped at a little band called
Napalm Death too.) Those things are fine and all, but youthful enthusiasm sure counts for a lot.
There’s something endearing about a bunch of young dudes in a fairly young scene, making music that’s youthfully angry, uninhibited and unrefined (check out that cover). Rude and crude is good - especially for a genre like grind. The characteristic heavy, distorted bass tone and high levels of fuzz are present. As are yelping and snarling vocals. I mean, this review is turning out pretty generic but that fits how formative the grindcore subgenre was at the time - emerging from a melting pot of punk rock, thrash and death metal influences. However, what defines this and what really makes this such a fun up-tempo, aggressive ride is the rawness, the sloppiness, the unpolished rough-and-ready style of a demo cassette from a bunch of kids pushing boundaries. “Destined to Rot” in particular feels like the death rattle of a snake in the Vegas desert, with a noise blast at the start of the recording and the overall dirtiness complementing the writhing, pummelling grind.
