One Sunday afternoon last April, I wandered the dark corners of Camden basement venue Underworld, numb underfoot and bleary of mind. I was mid-way through the final day of riff mecca Desertfest and, frankly, fit for fuck all. As I coveted the cloister of my bed, unslept in, one billion miles away in Belfast, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs strolled out on stage. Led by Matt Baty, a caterwauling knight in shining armour (1990s Newcastle United shorts) they inexplicably drove out my pining for home in sixty face-searing minutes.
Nineteen months on and Pigsx7 could, if they so wished, lay claim to being the UK’s perennial sludge-doom band. A jewel in the glistening crown of the North East’s underground scene, their newly-released second album, ‘King of Cowards’, is a skull-rattling triumph of down-tuned maximalism and a feature-length flare lit by one of the very few bands to have made a dent in my solar plexus.
Having written and recorded their 2017 full-length debut, ‘Feed the Rats’, in their hometown of Newcastle, the seeds of its follow-up were sown in much less familiar climes. “We had a couple of gigs in Italy that, for whatever reason, fell through on a tour,” reveals Baty to me. “So instead of cancelling the tour, we holed up in a converted barn in the country to write. There was nothing for miles. I think the closest village was, like, a twenty-minute drive away.”
Read the rest here: L&Q
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