Grindcore standard-bearers Pig Destroyer are less than a month away from dropping their anticipated new album Head Cage — their first album in over six years — on September 7th via Relapse. To soften the agonizing wait, the Virginia wrecking crew has kindly shared "The Torture Fields," a spastic, angular ripper that finds screamer-in-chief J.R. Hayes conjuring scenes of filth and fire ("I ride a cockroach/Down your streets of trash/Baptized in shadow/Born in a car crash.") Germophobes grossed out by the aforementioned lyrics will be relieved to know that the song's accompanying music video is completely devoid of the aforementioned imagery; instead, the Frank Huang–directed visual takes the form of a frenetic, kaleidoscopic live visual.
Pig Destroyer's trip to "The Torture Fields" follows "Army of Cops," a ten-ton-hammer of a track also set to appear on Head Cage. Detailing the emboldened, expanded feel of the new material, guitarist Scott Hull revealed that he initially imposed a "no blast beat" policy during sessions for the LP, but ultimately relented. "When I started writing the album, I said, 'Absolutely no blast beats,'" he recalls. "I wanted to stay away from 4/4 time signatures. I wanted to write something that was just absolutely different. But my bandmates were kinda wincing at the no-blast-beats thing, so I eased back into listening to Assück and Human Remains, and stuff like that. That's why the record doesn't sound inconsistent with the rest of our discography. But hopefully it's a little more angular and weird than what we usually do."
Head Cage can be pre-ordered ahead of its September 7th street dates at this location.
