HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: Prowler In The Yard – Pig Destroyer
With the sole exception of NAPALM DEATH, there’s no other grindcore band as widely loved and well respected as PIG DESTROYER. For two decades now, the Virginia-based purveyors of extremity have put out record after record without a single misstep. For many though, it all really started with their second full-length, Prowler In The Yard. Released 20 years ago today, the album remains a certified grindcore classic, and a fan favourite amid a practically flawless discography.
Even back in 2001, the hype was already starting to build around PIG DESTROYER. With a few splits and EPs, as well as their debut full-length Explosions In Ward 6, the band had caught the attention of the respected extreme metal label Relapse Records. After signing on the dotted line with Relapse in July 2000, the then trio swiftly set about piecing together what was to become their first masterpiece. Written and recorded using only an eight-track recorder in the confines of drummer Brian Harvey’s basement, the results were breathtaking not only in their brutality, but also somehow in their beauty. Prowler In The Yard set a benchmark for all grindcore to follow, and one that has arguably never been topped since.
There’s a lot that sets PIG DESTROYER apart from your average grindcore band, but most fans will be quick to point to the lyricism of vocalist J.R. Hayes. While his work on the band’s previous records was nothing short of solid, it was Prowler In The Yard that truly saw him come into his own in this regard. In what is surely one of the only grindcore concept albums ever made, Hayes’ lyrics tell a vivid and gripping story of love, sex, obsession and gore. For the most part, we appear to follow an unnamed protagonist in the week immediately after a break-up with ‘Jennifer.’ As the story progresses, we watch this protagonist spiral and spiral, with flashbacks to their relationship interspersing thoughts of solitude, violence, and self-harm. Eventually, it all comes to a devastating, stomach-churning conclusion that’s still not worth spoiling for the uninitiated even after all these years.
Of course, lots of bands in extreme music explore grim and violent subject matter, but in Hayes’ hands this never feels gratuitous. Not a single word is wasted, with engrossing stories often told in the space of just a few short sentences. Take, for example, the protagonist’s sinister contemplations on a track like Pornographic Memory: “An entire year of you in a single speck of blood/The gun smiles your smile and the razor whispers your name.” Or the lonely lament of Body Scout: “My skin has atrophied/It has been so long since the last touch/The maggots play their dead instruments for me.” We’re even drawn in by reflections on seemingly better days, such as on album highlight Hyperviolet: “Traced in a wet sand her name in perfect cursive/A love letter to the crescent moon.” There’s beauty in lines like these – often a twisted beauty, but beauty nonetheless.
A lot of Prowler In The Yard’s lyrical impact rests on Hayes’ scorching delivery, with both the content and the performance no doubt informed by the frontman’s personal circumstances at the time. In a 2012 interview with Invisible Oranges, he explained: “It was an intense time for me. I was young and didn’t know shit about love or girls. You think you do but I didn’t. I don’t want to cry a river here but I was upset with how I was treated by someone and it took over my writing.” It’s easy to hear this in the record itself, with Hayes’ harsh bark lending the album both an unhinged mania and a ferocious sense of emotional weight.
Equally central to PIG DESTROYER’s mastery on Prowler In The Yard is the tag-team of guitarist and principal songwriter Scott Hull and the octopus-like drummer Harvey. While the band’s line-up would go on to expand and change over the years, in 2001 it was just the two of them providing the backdrop for Hayes’ tortured musings. Clearly, they didn’t need much else. With Hull’s razor-sharp riffs and Harvey’s mesmeric drumming, the duo provided not only all the grindcore essentials, but also leaned more heavily into their metal side for the first time. Perhaps most obvious is the thrash metal influence of a band like SLAYER, particularly on tracks like Trojan Whore and Naked Trees, but there’s also a hefty touch of doom and sludge, most notably on another album highlight Starbelly.
It was this vicious concoction that saw Prowler In The Yard leave an indelible mark on the landscape of extreme music. In March 2009, Terrorizer named it the third best American grindcore release of all time, and it is currently ranked as the 34th best album of 2001 in any genre on Rate Your Music. Let’s not mince words here, we’re talking about a grim and gory grindcore record sitting alongside not only game-changing albums from our world like Lateralus and Toxicity, but also sharing space with pop-culture touchstones from the likes of JAY-Z, DAFT PUNK and THE STROKES. Today, the album’s influence continues to be heard both within its genre and beyond, and one need only listen to the reception of the tracks from this record on the band’s recent live release, Pornographers Of Sound, to see how clearly adored these songs remain.
PIG DESTROYER would go on to further greatness and critical acclaim with every release that followed, including most obviously on 2004’s Terrifyer and 2012’s Book Burner, but it was this record with which the band first and most decisively moved the goalposts of American grindcore. From the eye-widening horror of its computerised spoken opener, to its nausea-inducing artwork, Prowler In The Yard remains PIG DESTROYER’s most suffocating, most deranged, and most downright disturbing magnum opus.
Prowler In The Yard was originally released on July 24th 2001 via Relapse Records.
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