Fucked Up - Year of the Pig (Album)
Inna Gadda Da Vida anyone? The new 12” Fucked Up release Year of the Pig clocks in a lazy 18 and a half bells and it is absolute brilliance.
Starting with organ, a sly steady guitar and female vocals, the track gradually builds to a serious hardcore workout. They sound a little like Clutch, nothing like Iron Butterfly, and this may well be the sign of things to come. The CD/mp3 release comes with 4 B-sides and 3 7”-edits from the US, UK and Japan. Listening to the 7”-edits makes you realise this track is the sum of its epic parts. In the 4-minute form it doesn’t hold up; the riff and chorus aren’t good enough in a stand-alone form. It needs the twist and turns of the full epic for them to come into their own. It doesn’t help that the edits are shocking. What had been left in and taken out is bamboozling. Only the Japanese edit really goes anywhere close to capturing the true nature of the track.
The US and UK edits are astonishingly bad. Butchery. Surely the band gave the OK to these? I find it astounding. What’s more, those wishing to pick it up on iTunes can’t grab the 12” alone. That has been designated album-only. Thus, you need to grab all the edits and B-sides to hear it. Crazy. Rant complete.
Year of the Pig is the shot in the arm metal needed in my opinion. Genre-bending (but not in an Aerosmith-Run D.M.C way) and epic. Recommended.
