Prowler In the Yard

Grindcore. Remember that, from the Napalm Death album on the original list? Well, it's back. My hot take is that American grindcore had never been fully realized until this album. Taking Repulsion as a natural starting point, much of American grindcore had been strictly stemming from the then-popular wave of death metal at the time. Repulsion, of course, was the more thrashing death metal style from the mid '80s, but later groups such as Terrorizer, Brutal Truth, and Assück all found themselves sounding more like the death metal bands of their respective scenes (notably New York and Florida) with more grinding/blasting sections. Nary was there a "pure" grindcore group to be found in the United States. Not even New Jersey's Discordance Axis could claim to be a straightforward grindcore band, as they dabbled in a more technical style that was influenced by local mathcore group Rorschach. Enter Pig Destroyer. Guitarist Scott Hull had cut his teeth on grindcore-adjacent projects prior to this (the drum-machine-led cybergrind of Agoraphobic Nosebleed and comedy noisegrind group Anal Cunt), but was ready to deliver riffs for a no-bullshit grindcore band. Unlike the deathgrind bands of the '90s, Pig Destroyer was soley focused on delivering chaotic atonal grind riffs, manic drums with heavy blasting sections, and commanding shouted vocals that would define grindcore for the 21st century. This approach, with a distinctly metal tone, parallels a similar sound crafted by Nasum over in Europe around the same time. Both bands contributed to the larger pantheon of grindcore in ways that other bands would pick up on throughout the 2000s. Insect Warfare, Wormrot, Rotten Sound, and Nails would all find lineage back to either Nasum or Pig Destroyer in some way or another. So, to say that Pig Destroyer is an important band within the world of grind would be an understatement. Prowler in the Yard is Pig Destroyer's breakout album and arguably their masterpiece depending on who you talk to. Frighteningly compelling, every note on this album hits with a complete intensity that sounds shockingly full for a band with no bassist. Beyond the straight-forward grind tracks, Pig Destroyer will occasionally play with droning post-metal ambiance and disturbing dark ambient text-to-speech bookends that set the tone and push the conceptual ideas of Prowler to its fullest potential. It's a rush of unhindered violence that never fails to keep me enthralled. Do I think it's the greatest grindcore album of all time? No, but do I think it's an important grindcore album? Absolutely. CONTENDER FOR THE LIST: No. There shouldn't be a single grindcore album on the list in the first place, let alone a second. It's a niche genre for speed freaks and it should stay that way.

Fuck them pigs

Grindcore ronde 2. 14 years after Scum you can hear where the genre has changed and where it stayed the same. Good band

Goddamn:0 its its own thing at least 4

A bit too heavy for me, but I do appreciate the skill of the speed and unusual rhythms

Grindcore is so fucking funny man.

I think these boys need some food and an early night. They seem awfully tired and hangry. Perhaps this is useful for primal scream therapy or something. I wouldn't want to actually listen to it for pleasure.

Relatively bland hardcore without much to distinguish it from the hundreds of other LPs like it out there. All for some heavier adds to the user list, but this has no defining features beyond its adequate execution and already feels pretty dated.

Really not my thing - striking me as predominately a pretty uniform high speed thrash. I wasn't differentiating one word in twenty of the supposedly extreme and transgressive lyrics, aside from the robot voiceover bookending it (which didn't Ido a lot for me). But I can't hate too much on a 22 track album that includes one almost 8 minute and another over 5 minute track but still clocks in shy of 37 minutes overall.

I appreciate having this genre explored a bit more since I hated Napalm Death. This was more bearable but still very immature. I read the lyrics and was like "yeah cool story bro". It's got that edgelord energy. Hated the vocals. But at least this thing was short. My personal rating: 1/5 My rating relative to the list: 1.5/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No.

Rating: 5/10

I'm open to most music. This one didn't hit a mark for me.

It’s a no from me, dawg.

Maybe this hit me at a bad time? Lord knows I've liked things musically worse than this but it came across as a tired and uninspiring attempt to shock.