Big Black: Pigpile
1992
Touch and Go Records
Format I Own it on: Vinyl
Track Listing: 1. Fists of Love 2. L Dopa 3. Passing Complexion 4. Dead Billy 5. Cables 6. Bad Penny 7. Pavement Saw 8. Kerosene 9. Steelworker 10. Pigeon Kill 11. Fish Fry 12. Jordan, Minnesota
I remember this coming out shortly after I first got into Big Black (via "Songs About Fucking") and was stoked to hear what kind of sonic chaos this band could wreak live... Turns out their live shows were less chaotic than the fried clangor the studio albums served up...The layers of grit have been scraped away from the vocals and Steve Albini's message becomes direct and clear...A guided tour of the deepest, darkest corners of the trailer park...Missing fingers, wife-beaters, unrepentant racists, Trump supporters...You have to be in a certain mood to embrace this kind of bleak reality, but when that mood hits there's nothing better (except maybe the Jesus Lizard?). 1-2-3-Fuck you!!
That horrible, glorious, paper-cut guitar is still in full-effect though...Clawing and scraping at raw, self-inflicted wounds...Shit that never heals...Live drummer? Fuck, no...Just a disengaged, pounding drum machine. They stayed true to the sound until the end...Oh yea, I should mention this was recorded around the same time as "Songs About Fucking" so it makes for a great overview of the band's brief history, since you get something from almost every one of their releases...
Here are the highlights as I see them: I love the zombified groove of "Dead Billy," which comes across as a mutant strain of diseased funk...They also happen to choose a couple of my favorite "Songs About Fucking" tracks with "L Dopa" and "Bad Penny," but I think I have to (unsurprisingly) pick "Kerosene" as the show-stopper...I don't know if any other song has ever captured that repellent strain of backwoods boredom better:
"Sit around at home
Nothing to do
Stare at the walls
Stare at each other
Wait til we die!"
So what's left to do? Bust out the kerosene...Set something on fire...The whole song just kinda slowly twists in discomfort...The misanthropic pigeon-killer's monologue in "Pigeon Kill" is pretty twisted too..
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