Wasting no time before the approaching September 7th release date of their upcoming sixth album Head Cage, Pig Destroyer have released their third single (and music video) of the summer. "Mt. Skull" falls in line with the band's two-to-three-minute song formula, an aural assault that punches and stops but with a wicked sense of humor to keep the mood light while they batter your eardrums into dust.
The video stars Better Call Saul actor Josh Fadem as Stanley, a deceased young man in a casket being carried by ragtag pallbearers up a flight of stairs. Suddenly, cartoon bananas appear from nowhere as reality is augmented with video game obstacles, and Stanley's carriers slip down the staircase, dropping him on the way. The coffin, now magically animated, races unaided across town, pulling classic skateboard moves like kickflips and nose grinds until it reaches its final destination in a skate park across town. A digital rendition of Stanley rises from the smashed casket and the "player" is given his final score.
It's a total break from Pig Destroyer's first two performance-based videos from Head Cage, and an impressive achievement considering that the band manages to sound as punishingly serious as ever while pumping out one of the funniest videos in this year's metal batch. Adding an additional layer of heavy to this effort is bassist John Jarvis, who joined the band in 2013 but has yet to be on an album until now. With guest spots from the likes of Agoraphobic Nosebleeds' Richard Johnson and Full of Hell vocalist Dylan Walker, Pig Destroyer's first album in six years is sure to stand tall among its predecessors.
