Death In June – All Pigs Must Die (2001)

January 18, 2023

I remember years and years ago, when I was doing GCSE art. My teacher, someone who introduced me to all sorts of obscure shit like Unseen Terror for example, had this CD with him one day. He put it in front of me and said “what do you think that sounds like?”. I didn’t know what I was looking at back then, but the image of Douglas in that mask, holding a knife to the throat of a pig, well that stayed with me forever. “Bet you think it’s going to be some proper mad Norwegian stuff don’t you?” my teacher goaded me. The man had a full stereo system in the corner of his dilapidated classroom, and All Pigs Must Die went into the CD tray. I was 15 years old, and I was just migrating from being obsessed with black metal to being obsessed with grindcore, and I had no time for the twinkly acoustic tracks that came from the speakers. 

It’s only by looking back now, do I realise how unusual it was for someone to be playing this album to a class full of teenagers as they painted awful compositions on cheap craft paper. I kinda respect him for showing us stuff like that, and Unseen Terror, and Napalm Death and so on. 

Anyway, back to the present. All Pigs Must Die is, to me, as it seems to be with many others, just half an album. The first half, which comprises of gorgeous and bare acoustic compositions, with haunting additions of trumpets and flutes, is up there with some of the best material Douglas has ever done (the title track and “Tick Tock” in particular). I have no particular gripe with the lyrical content, as petty as airing disputes can be. 

Unfortunately, this high quality does taper off towards the latter half, where the record descends into the world of noise and sound collages. This stuff was done much better on the albums that would come, such as Operation Hummingbird and Take Care And Control, where Douglas had more outside help in these fields. Its a shame that Boyd Rice appears on the album, but contributes no noise, only vocals. 

If you just want to throw something on in the background this isn’t exactly awful, but the juxtaposition between the acoustic stuff and the noise stuff further just highlights how far, far better one type of songwriting is than the other. Sorry Douglas.