Pig Destroyer, a bass-less trio from Virginia that featured guitarist Scott Hull, popularized grindcore as a less extreme genre on their third album Prowler in the Yard (2001) after indulging in the extremes on
Explosions In Ward 6 (1998) and
38 Counts Of Battery (2000).
The classic grind sound began to show cracks on
Terrifyer (2004) and Phantom Limb (2007), while the EP
Natasha (2005) had already changed course towards a progressive-metal
concept.
Agoraphobic Nosebleed, featuring Pig Destroyer's guitarist Scott Hull and a drum-machine instead of a live drummer, embellished the grotesquely-short miniatures of
vicious grindcore insanity on
the 26-song mini-album
Honky Reduction (1998), mostly 20 or 30 seconds long, from the
absolute mayhem of Black Ink on Black Paper
to the convoluted Die and Get the Fuck Out of the Way
to the wall of riffs of The House of Feasting (a whopping minute long)
to the agonizing Circus Mutt
to the macabre Her Despair Reeks of Alcohol
to the pure frenzy of Cloved in Twain
to the three-minute psychodrama of Acute Awareness.
Frozen Corpse Stuffed With Dope (2002), which contains 38 songs,
added another vocalist, Carl Schultz
and adulterated grindcore with samples and digital processing.
The album mostly marks a turn towards a
more accessible and a little clownish grindcore, even with the brutal volcanic
explosions of
North American Corpse Desecration,
Contaminated Drug Supply, the
17-second Shit Slit and the 37-second 5 Band Genetic Equalizer.
Schultz seems to add an even melodic dimension in songs like Repercussions in the Life of an Opportunistic Pseudo-Intellectual Jackass
and
Ceremonial Gasmask.
They expand the borders of grindcore with the
macabre and goofy Hang the Pope and
the agonizing Organ Donor.
The samples inject further disorientation: Machine Gun, Dead Battery, the creepy Cryogenic Husk and especially the horror psychedelic Chalking the Temporal God Module.
Altered States Of America (2003) packed 100 songs on a 20-minute EP, most of them lasting between four and ten seconds, raging bursts of angst-filled fury.
Alas, not very musical.
The double-disc Bestial Machinery (Relapse, 2005) is an anthology of their early career (136 songs).
Agoraphobic Nosebleed calmed down on the disappointing
Agorapocalypse (Relapse, 2009), that contains "only" 13 tracks.
Alas, the song format exposed all the musical limitations of the project.
The main attractions of
Pig Destoyer's
Painter Of Dead Girls (Robotic Empire, 2011) were the covers, and that
was not a good sign despite the usual frenzy and bombast.
Book Burner (Relapse, 2012), the first record in five years,
moved closer to Agoraphobic Nosebleed's sound with 19 songs in 32 minutes.
