Rating: NNNN
Washington grindcore innovators Pig Destroyer have over the last few years released such jolting music that their latest, while still being eons ahead of 99 per cent of the rest, falls short of 2001’s Prowler In The Yard and 2004’s flawless and frightening Terrifyer.
Have they lost it? No, and perhaps it’s unfair to suggest that they can do any better than this absurdly tight and vicious concoction of blasting drums and menacingly powerful guitar riffing plus singer Jr. Hayes’s mad, poetic screams, which made listening to Terrifyer alone in a dark room such an uncomfortable experience.
So instead of doing the impossible by trying to improve on or rehash the same thing, on Phantom Limb they take more and more chances, thus expanding the notion of grindcore. Song structures are longer and more defined, while the musicianship is still precise and pummelling.
This may be a transitional album, but it still destroys everything else like it.