“Here’s one for the 6 Music dads!” declares Ellis Acton-Dyer. You’ve got to admire Shlug’s optimism at winning over new fans. If Charlotte Church can be wowing the prosecco mums with Dead Kennedys covers just down the road at Depot, then I guess anything’s possible. But south Wales’ premier three-man wrecking crew are in no mood to make concessions for an unfamiliar crowd.
As ever, vocalist/guitarist Acton-Dyer starts stripped to the waist, looking like a bare-knuckle boxer who’s caught sight of his own reflection in the toilet of a flat-roofed pub and asked it outside for a fight in the car park. Appropriately enough, the music he makes in league with pummelling rhythm section Ethan Poole and Francis James sounds like a violent brawl of hardcore and noiserock, and the title track of forthcoming album Eat God In The Death House is less a conciliatory olive branch to a new demographic and more a feral howl into the endless void.
All of which sets Hang Linton up for a fall. Even without what has gone before, though, their electro punk would have underwhelmed, not least because it’s hindered by clunking sub-Bob Vylan lyrics about “politicians in their towers”. The desired exchange of energy fails to materialise, given to but not reciprocated by an audience that is predominantly bemused rather than entertained. Their Facebook page talks loftily about “songs that surf the borders of genre”, and there could potentially be mileage in marrying drum’n’bass – but sometimes a mashup is just a mess.
Which leaves us with Pigs Sevenfold, back in town for a performance that has been rescheduled from May due to illness (swine flu, presumably). Sabbath worship on the Sabbath – how appropriate. From the stage backdrop of Orange amps, to the intro music (AC/DC’s For Those About To Rock), to the bold choice of opening track (The Wyrm, the epic centrepiece of most recent LP Death Hilarious), we’re in safe hands.
Over the course of five albums, Pigsx7 have crawled out of the primeval slime of the UK metal underground and into venues like this, setting themselves apart from the pack in two key ways. First, while desert rock and doom remain their staples, both are usually served spiked with classic metal rather than neat; several songs gallop along at a thunderous Motörhead-like clip before sinking deep into stoner quicksand. And the choice of Detroit as Death Hilarious’ lead single felt like a deliberate signal that they’re not afraid of embracing the nastiness of noiserock too.
Second, the band’s theatrical, fun side is especially evident live, and tonight they’re stoopider than ever. Moustachioed loon Matt Baty repeatedly gripes about Download inviting Vengaboys and Scooter to play but not them; Sam Grant is introduced as Scatman John (cue a spontaneous crowd rendition of “Ski-ba-bop-ba-dop-bop”); and his fellow guitarist Adam Ian Sykes judges a ‘headbanger of the evening’ competition, the joint winners’ prizes consisting of a bag of carrot batons and three magic tricks performed by bassist Johnny Joseph Hedley.
A playful poke in the eye for the po-faced, for sure – but sonically they remain as uncompromising as ever. Lumbering, lurching closer Toecurler in particular escalates well into the red, threatening to open up a portal to another dimension and sending us home dazed, confused and utterly convinced of their brilliance.
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, Hang Linton + Shlug, Tramshed, Cardiff, Sun 20 Sept
words BEN WOOLHEAD photos CHLOE JACKSON-NOTT
