ALBUM REVIEW: Mental Madness – Pig Pen

Wouldn’t it be nice if your favourite actor from The Bear, who actually is a chef, made the sort of music you’d imagine he’d make when you look at him? Well he did, Matty Matheson and PIG PEN have just released their debut record Mental Madness — a hardcore record packed with all of the elements that they loved from the genre when they were growing up.

Mental Madness in no way reinvents the wheel but it’s definitely made interesting and kept engaging from start to finish. They leave a mark from the get go opening with Rabid Beach which strikes with the stopping force of a blunt force trauma. They carry this momentum through the following Heat Wave but take a mean swaggering approach in their namesake track Pig Pen.

All throughout there’s a sweat laden air of nostalgia that weighs on the record, Power Love Train and Highway particularly speak to classic 80’s hardcore that feels hastily thrown together in the best way imaginable. The greatest thing about that is how much fun the music exudes, especially in comparison to most of hardcore that is occupying the spotlights throughout the scene currently — despite the recurring theme of mental health that is present across Mental Madness.

Tracks like Mental Mentality and Venom Moon Rising make the themes of mental health stand out — the prior spouting lyrics like “Teach me to hate myself, teach me not to care” and the latter with Matheson screaming “The sun will never rise again”. It conjures an image of mental catastrophe that has been embedded from young, corroding the mind from the inside out, an ailment that can only escape at the highest of pressures. Perhaps the fun nostalgia that radiates from the record is a symptom of the catharsis felt from being so candid in the lyricism. The relief becomes elation. Mental Madness closes with a six minutes grinder, and each riff pushes you face closer to that grinder; XJXIXIDX eventually flips the script away from doom and counters it with raining down stars from above as those of us below combust alongside the ensuing madness — it’s a perfect ending moment.

As a whole the record is a great reminder to reinvest in what makes you happy other than what dominates your life on a regular basis, whether it’s another band, or a successful culinary career — take the time to nurture those things you loved growing up, like hardcore, or food, or games. Let them be the catharsis that you so desperately need in a collapsing world. 

Rating: 8/10

Mental Madness is out now via Flatspot Records.

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