We all like to be scared don’t we? It releases endorphins and gives an adrenaline rush that is quite like no other. Films and books are a good way of getting the fear although as you get older it is fair to say that you become quite desensitized to things and it takes a rare viewing or reading of something to genuinely drag you to the edge of terror. Music often accompanies films and crafts an atmosphere around them embellishing the horror of what you are viewing and at times exaggerating it. Think of those grating notes in Psycho as the blade is plunged into the shower, without Hermann’s jarring score the scene would not have had anywhere near such a visceral impact. This brings me neatly onto this album as Porcus Norvegicus could easily be the soundtrack to your worst nightmares and there is something about it as a whole that really does strike as quite horrifying.
Firstly the title is a good play on words to that well known Stranglers album but one look at the cover art of this puts things in a much more beastly perspective. The disembodied pigs head looks demonic and threatening and the fact that the album is brought to us in part by ‘The Squealing Pig Ensemble’ makes it all the more dreadful in my mind. The players behind this project in fact are members of Yurei, Virus, Swarms, Audiopain, Mind and Flesh and the project was founded in 2001 by Kim Solve, who is heavily involved in the Norwegian music scene as musician and artist. Musically they take a lot of influence from old industrial acts who I shall come to as they are apparent within the soundscapes, as well as to my mind a lot of film and older classical musical composers.
‘First Movement First Kill’ speaks for itself title wise. This is a stalking and slashing symphony with dread booms and crashes bringing the quarry out of hiding and having it running in headless panic. Fear is present in every twist and turn as it builds. We could also be in a haunted house rather than seeing a human doing the stalking, the music is demonic and with the cover and the theme I am immediately thinking of Amityville and as we go to the ominous horn sound and mechanised clank of ‘Pig Boy’ we are in a squalid place barren of humanity. The militaristic vocals come in with a tribal beat I cannot shake this porcine feeling, this is Lord Of The Flies mixed with early Laibach and SPK bands that are cited as being influences and ones who I could not help but mention. Some ghostly French wartime music lightens mood sending a shiver and then a quirky, frivolous and almost cartoonish segment before the flames of ‘Incinerator Symphony’ are sparked with more dread tones that no amount of heat can stop you shivering at.
We move between segments of cold dark industrial akin to the likes of MZ412 and Nordvagr and hateful stomping parts with fascistic sounding ranting vocals. Again a track title like ‘Fuck You Like You Hate Me’ speaks for itself. Always at the forefront though is the pig. It is as though the artists have embedded it in my mind in all its filthy rutting glory. I kind of wonder how this would synch in if I put it on as the soundtrack to ‘Vase de Noces’ but I am sickened at the thought and not much more likely to do so than eat a bacon sandwich, glad to be a vegetarian as this continues.
Children in Uniform carries on the martial aspect of things with what sounds like a wind up clockwork drummer providing the clattering effects over dictatorship fuelled vocals. It’s quite an effective mixture of sounds, these children are no doubt being commanded to do something quite atrocious, maybe they have been brainwashed. There are more disconcerting sound parts with ‘The Pig Shaped Tumour’ reminding a bit of the scores for the Alien movies and more cartoon etched parts such as ‘Amputease.’ Stravinsky and the sacrificial Rite Of Spring comes to mind on ‘Stalker,’ there is no escaping it and finally things come to a head on ‘Viva la Morte.’ Yes the dead have triumphed and their plans have been totally evil as far as this album is concerned. It has been an incredibly unsettling ‘shit the bed’ listen but one that has to be sat through as a challenge to see if you can make it all the way and if there is going to be a light at the end of the tunnel. The tones of this final funeral dirge make it obvious that here only darkness is your salvation; the tomb door is closed for ever more.
This will be getting a lot of plays in fact I may just pig out on it!
(8/10 Pete Woods)
07/12/2012 at 1:16 pm
Nice review, just listening to a sample track on their page and sounds pretty damn scary! Think I’ll be buying this one.