LIVE REVIEW // Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs @ Mercury Lounge

A band name can say a lot about a group. So when I stumbled upon an English metal band with the name of, and I will only write this out once, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, I felt a little paralyzed. Immediately, my mind was plagued with questions. Even more so when I perused Spotify and saw a cover of disco diva Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff” slotted next to an album whose imagery consisted of loose intestines and an eyeball with a fork in it. Who are these guys? How much do they hate themselves to end up with a name like Pigs (x7)? Then, I played the aforementioned cover of “Hot Stuff”, and took it all back. Sometimes you make your way so far from sense that you come back around and things become crystal clear. 

Pigs is a hard rock band – a lotta metal, kinda punk, a tinge psychedelic. If you know anything about hard rock as a scene, Pigs’ cover of a disco track feels like a radical act. It’s disarming, and earns them a lot of points from someone who loves rock, not in a “disco sucks” way, but in a “many things can be good at once” way. Don’t get me wrong, they didn’t go full Saturday Night Fever in polyester leisure suits, but it was nice to see a heavy band not take themselves so obnoxiously serious. I mean, you can’t expect pretension from a band with a name like that.

Pigs’ fourth album, Land of Sleeper, came out six weeks ago. It doesn’t have any more disco covers, but it’s phenomenal nonetheless. It’s real, doomy, stoner metal for people who think heavy music should be for genuine enjoyment and not the superiority complex of listening to things that don’t get radio play. Buzzing, abrasive, and cataclysmically huge, there are bits of psychedelia and theatrical levity brewed into the 70s-tinged sound. After listening to it all the way through, I was thrilled to see them in the flesh.

The quintet started and finished their first ever (!!) US tour in New York City, with sold out shows at Saint Vitus on the outset and Mercury Lounge for the finale. I caught them at the latter show, where they played the early set. I missed the opening band, White Hills, because the very glamorous business of music journalism does not, in fact, afford me the lifestyle of skipping my day job. But I knew they were worth looking into when one half of the band, a bleached blonde woman in a latex catsuit with glitter lapels, breezed through the crowd next to me after their set with an unshakeable je ne sais quoi. Turns out, they both rock hard, and live in the city, so you can catch me at their next gig. 

Then, the clock struck 7:30, and Pigs took the stage at the clamorous ending of “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)” by AC/DC. Like five cool uncles, the members of Pigs looked amazingly typical – no Matrix-core, black eyeliner dramatics in sight. When they started playing, the entire room shook and I felt my organs slowly making their way up to my esophagus. It was mesmerizing, violently loud, and so much fun. I felt like I was sloshing through the swamp – halfway between primordial soup and electric green Jell-O – on a trek to the mystified planet that Pigs flew down from. There was something so spellbinding about it, something that could only come from them and the genuine passion they played with. 

As soon as frontman Matt Baly opened his mouth, my suspicions about the band were confirmed. They are truly cool. After describing their group as a Queen cover band that “left a lot to be desired”, they broke into what would be, by Baly’s metrics, their “Bohemian Rhapsody” –  “Ultimate Hammer”. Like the Queen hit, I got a crick in my neck from banging so hard and wished it went on a lot longer.  I think there’s a joke in there somewhere about the monarchy being pigs, but I won’t probe it… Too fresh. (RIP Queen Elizabeth, I guess. You probably would have hated Pigs’, as it should be.)  

The set was far too short (booooooo to Mercury Lounge for double-booking shows), but on the bright side, it left me amped up and excited for the next time they make their way across the pond. I left the show with my ears ringing and heart thumping, feeling truly excited about this band whose name I refuse to say in its entirety. Whenever people say “rock is dead”, I tell them they just aren’t looking hard enough. This is proof of that. 

In the words of Pigs: What a time to be alive.

Photos: Jac Clayton

Keep up with Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs on Instagram and stream on Spotify or Apple Music.