Album Reviews
What happens when a group of longtime friends who have all come up in the punk and hardcore underground, decide to channel their roots into a raw, unfiltered burst of energy? You get ‘Mental Madness,’ the debut full-length from Pig Pen, a band born in the midst of pandemic downtime and fueled by equal parts rage and lifelong friendship.
Fronted by celebrity chef/The Bear actor Matty Matheson, Pig Pen is a love letter to the 80s hardcore scene that shaped its members. Alongside Matheson, we find Alexisonfire’s Wade MacNeil, Daniel and Ian Romano (of Daniel Romano’s Outfit), and Tommy Major (Young Guv, Tommy and the Commies).
The story goes they wrote these ten songs over the course of one day, and then recorded them the next. That urgency bleeds into every moment of Mental Madness. These ten tracks are short and harsh, and deal with - according to Matheson - “mental health shit.”
With the band members’ pedigree, it should come as no surprise that Pig Pen comes out the gate as a fully formed band that knows what’s up. As a result, ‘Mental Madness’ has a nice flow to it and has no problem embodying the spirit of old-school hardcore. All of these songs wouldn’t look out of place on the demo tapes you used to swap at basement shows: raw and real. ‘Mental Madness’ is loud, it’s fast, it’s honest and it pays tribute to 80’s hardcore. But unfortunately it is also a bit too much of the same thing and as a result, it is kind of like the third season of The Bear: not quite as good as what came before it.
Mental Madness tracklist:
- Rabid Beach
- Heat Wave
- Pig Pen
- Power Love Train
- Mental Mentality
- Highway
- Venom Moon Rising
- Problem Mind
- Howl & Veil
- XJXIXDX
Lacking the talent to actually play in a band, Tom decided he would write about bands instead. Turns out his writing skills are mediocre at best as well.
