Virginia extreme sound revolutionaries PIG DESTROYER deliver savage grindcore that is both intentionally confrontational and thoroughly pummeling. PIG DESTROYER formed in 1997, when vocalist J.R. Hayes and Agoraphobic Nosebleed guitarist Scott Hull united in their efforts to create utterly destructive grindcore. As soon as the band, also featuring founding drummer John Evans, began rehearsing, they found that their common musical interests produced intelligent and incendiary compositions. After releasing a self-titled demo, which was met with rousing critical reception, PIG DESTROYER released their first full-length, Explosions in Ward 6. Strongly positive reactions to Explosions in Ward 6 established PIG DESTROYER as one of the best new grind acts to have emerged worldwide in the last decade.

Relapse Records soon signed the band off the strength of Explosions, and in 2001 PIG DESTROYER took listeners on a rampaging journey through an unsettling, psychotic world with their landmark release Prowler In The Yard. Melding an insane musical attack with similarly jarring lyrical prose and an unmatched propensity to incite, Prowler In The Yard hit listeners like a coal-black monolith of nihilism. The record stunned music fans, garnering lavish praise, and became one of the more talked-about extreme music releases in recent history, even breaking into the mainstream metal media despite its brutality. Headlining performances at the 2002 New England Metal and Hardcore Festival and at the 2002 Relapse Records CMJ Showcase, alongside a high-profile set at the Relapse Records Contamination Festival in Philadelphia, cemented PIG DESTROYER’s place among the new goliaths of heavy music.

PIG DESTROYER then continued work on the follow-up to Prowler In The Yard. In what would turn out to be an exhausting, lengthy creative process, the band assumed the ambitious goal of creating a multi-media monster (CD / Audio-DVD package) with their next album. Terrifyer was released in the fall of 2004, and embodied a frighteningly compelling mix of seething metal, intense grind, and thrash and punk rock. Terrifyer featured 32 minutes of unrelenting sonic battery in addition to the 37-minute Audio-DVD track “Natasha.”

The 2007 release of Phantom Limb, which received acclaim from critics and listeners worldwide, cemented the band’s legendary status and showcased the band’s versatility with its incursions into sludgier and groovier territory than ever before. Phantom Limb was followed by an extensive US tour that found PIG DESTROYER sharing the stage with Carcass, Suffocation, Misery Index, Genghis Tron, and Car Bomb. In 2009, the band made festival appearances at Hellfest, Maryland Deathfest, CMJ Fest, and Scion Rock Fest, and have since played at numerous other national and international festivals including Hopscotch Fest, Brutal Assault, Damnation Festival, and Phil Anselmo’s Housecore Horror Film Fest.

In 2012, PIG DESTROYER partnered with new drummer Adam Jarvis (Misery Index) and released Book Burner, their ruthless follow-up to Phantom Limb. Book Burner showcased a return to a rawer, more primitive sound, and featured 19 songs of the band’s signature misanthropic grind. 2013 saw PIG DESTROYER release an EP of previously unreleased content through Bandcamp titled Mass and Volume as part of a charity effort, and also saw Adam Jarvis’s cousin John Jarvis join PIG DESTROYER as the band’s first bass player.The band have also made impressive inroads into more mainstream media – the one-off single “Octagonal Stairway” was included in Adult Swim’s Singles Series, and “The Diplomat” (off of Book Burner) featured prominently in the season three finale of Comedy Central’s acclaimed Workaholics. This September, the band are set to reissue a deluxe remixed and remastered 2CD version of their 2001 classic Prowler In The Yard on Relapse, which will include a bounty of previously unreleased music and media. Yet even accounting for the band’s more visible successes, what still stands out the most is their fundamental and immaculate musical essence. PIG DESTROYER boil metal down to its muscle, sinew, and bone – razor-sharp guitar, percussive pummeling, throbbing bass, and a lone, stark howl. Though their music is incomparably dark, the future is quite bright for PIG DESTROYER.

We like taco bell and white castle.

ferocious: marked by unrelenting intensity; extreme.

uplifting: To raise to spiritual or emotional heights; exalt.

These two words embody the sonic, visionary, and aesthetic experience that is Chicago’s industrial metal duo, PLAGUE BRINGER. Featuring guitarist/drum programmer, Greg Ratajczak and vocalist Josh Rosenthal, PLAGUE BRINGER is an ever-evolving project whose mission to be as progressive as it is aggressive, has garnered comparisons across the ‘heavy’ music spectrum from TOOL to GODFLESH to PIG DESTROYER.

‘Life Songs in a Land of Death’, PLAGUE BRINGER’s sophomore release and their first for HeWhoCorrupts INC, is the product of over two years of creative fervor, merciless judgment, and obsessive attention to detail both artistically and conceptually. The album satisfies the duo’s selfish need to create intelligent, relevant, and personal art which also aims to captivate listeners by drawing them into a ferocious and uncomfortable yet rewarding and uplifting sonic experience. Thematically, the album addresses ideas of self realization through adversity, the death of the impassioned, and the search and discovery of beauty beneath filth. The album was mastered by Scott Hull at Visceral Sound and is the follow up to 2005’s acclaimed debut full length, ‘As the Ghosts Collect, The Corpses Rest’ (Seventh Rule Recordings/Lo Fi Violence).

PLAGUE BRINGER formed in December of 2002, shortly after Ratajczak’s work at Clava Studios with producer/engineer BRIAN DECK and MODEST MOUSE on “The Moon and Antarctica”. Ratajczak asked long time friend and artistic collaborator, Rosenthal, to contribute his unique writing style to the project and provide lyrics that when read and reflected upon, unveil deeper layers of meaning to the reader. Ratajczak began the project with and has chosen to continue using the drum machine, which is just as significant to the PLAGUE BRINGER sound, both live and in the studio, as either human member.

PLAGUE BRINGER has established a strong presence in the metal underground. Consistent shows throughout the Midwest and several tours to the East coast afforded the group the opportunity to share stages with the likes of BRUTAL TRUTH, PIG DESTROYER, DEICIDE, the BLACK DAHLIA MURDER, KHANATE, the RED CHORD, and RUSSIAN CIRCLES.

THE LION’S DAUGHTER was born out of a hatred for the insincere and uninspired cookie-cutter fodder the mainstream metal scene has become. They takes notes from black metal and doom, but live by no musical limitations and are driven to please no audience but themslves. The band’s most recent work is a prime example of their play-to-please-no-one credo. Previous releases include two self-released EPs, a 12” split with Fister (Hands up Records, 2011), and the full length Shame On Us All (Pissfork, 2012), which Cvlt Nation described as a, “hard-hitting blast of bruising riffs that will surely leave you drained from start to finish.” The trio was created in 2007 by guitarist/vocalist Rick Giordano and drummer Erik Ramsier after leaving a band that neither liked much, and named their new project after a campy romance novel they saw at the airport because fuck it. Scott Fogelbach of Love Lost But Not Forgotten soon joined and opening spots for Torche, Nachtmystium, High on Fire, Dark Funeral, Eyehategod, and more ensued as well as a national tour with Fister, with the band delivering a live show that the Riverfront Times called, “absolutely punishing.” Additionally, THE LION’S DAUGHTER won the RFT Reader’s Poll “Best Metal Band” (in St. Louis) award in 2011 and again in 2013. Forever Cursed calls THE LION’S DAUGHTER, “one of the most underrated bands out there,” No Clean Singing champions their, “heavy, harsh, and harrowing,” sound while The Bone Reader welcomes their,“caustic, blistering noise of the post-apocalypse.” But the band doesn’t play as if it simply wants to see the world end; it sounds like they want to be the ones to destroy it.