Pig Destroyer

Natasha

[4.5/5]

Up until 2004’s Terrifyer, Pig Destroyer’s left field grindcore was still clearly identifiable as just that: Grindcore. Anyone who made it through Terrifyer’s face-peeling first disc to the 5.1 surround-sound bonus audio DVD, Natasha, however, learned just how far PD were willing to push their parent genre. On this reissue-of-sorts, Natasha gets the stand-alone-CD treatment it’s arguably deserved all along. Natasha is more audio film than album: Musically, the track jettisons PD’s usual million-bpm grind for long instrumental passages that are as reminiscent of pathological noise artists Whitehouse as they are of depressive sludge kings like early Melvins and Swans. The impeccably recorded sound effects and disturbing, frequently whispered horror narrative at Natasha’s center feel more David Fincher than Discordance Axis-which, even four years after the fact, still feels like a monumental leap for grindcore in general. (RELAPSE) Aaron Burgess