Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs
Land Of Sleeper
Rocket Recordings/Missing Piece Group Records [2023]
Disciples of the riff fall to your knees and raise your hands to the heavens shouting, “we’re not worthy!” Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs is here to crush your skull with the solar mass of multiple black holes. Hailing from Newcastle, UK, Pigs x7 can almost feel like a misrepresentation of the band. With their sound, the band feels like it fell out of California with the likes of Sleep, Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Nebula, and Mondo Generator. Land Of Sleeper is their follow up to 2020’s Viscerals, and it builds upon the furious energy with more of an aim for the stars and beyond.
Taken from the mouth of Edgar Allen Poe, the album kicks off with “Sleep, those little slices of death – how I loathe them.” Matt Baty (vocalist and lyricist) has always had a fascination with this quote and it’s what he wanted to convey with Land of Sleeper. “Ultimate Hammer” starts that album out as the band intended, a thunderous slam, and our ears are the nail. The song gallops and chugs and near the end its fuzzy chords burn with a red giant intensity. “Big Rig” takes a swing for the fences with a lumbering intro that mimics early The Sword. Getting extra doomy near the end, the song turns on a dime into a speedy Sabbath groove. “The Weatherman” takes the band back to their lengthy song beginnings as the longest track on the album clocks in at 6:47. The song is a meditative exercise in cosmic horror that hypnotizes with its punishing loop and subtle changes each time around. Its irony stems from the “drop out of life” feel but, with a call for violence and mayhem in the forecast. “Mr. Medicine” was the first song that we heard from the album and really piqued my interest. Mimicking all the stoner tones you know and love the song is just a straightforward, feel good jam. “Atlas Stone” places a stranglehold on its guitars that demand a head-bob while cosmic rays of fuzz permeate underneath. “Ball Lightning” holds one of the biggest surprises on the album in the form of piano keys starting the song. The song has a subtle build but near its ending crackles to life as if springing from the hands of a level 2 wizard. Also, if you want to add a bit more of a gruesome context to the song look at what a Knackerman does.
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs have crafted a fun Sabbath worship album in Land of Sleeper. Land of Sleeper revels in its campy and doomy excess with tighter, leaner dynamics that have rarely been heard in the bands catalogue. Pigs x7 embarked on a quest not to reinvent the wheel but to find and pay homage to the original wheel. The album is exactly a comfort piece embracing you in a blanket of warm and woolly fuzz. Fans of the genre should introduce this to your earholes because even after one listen you’ll be grooving in no time.
KEY TRACKS
“Big Rig” / “The Weatherman” / “Ball Lightning”
ARTISTS WITH SIMILAR FIRE
The Sword / Charley No Face / Black Sabbath
PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS LINKS
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