Coming off the recent live debut of Matty Matheson’s new hardcore band, Pig Pen, the restauranteur, actor and media personality has announced the first full-length offering from the Canadian supergroup. While they’ll soon be serving up an album called Mental Madness, they’ve sliced off a single in advance called “Mental Mentality.”
The de facto title cut begins with an amber wave of harmonized distortion before grumbling towards a creepy-crawl old school mosh pace, and then a blitz of Eighties crossover-ish speediness. Per a press release, Matheson is howling himself hoarse about “mental health shit,” with the tune weighing in on isolation, loneliness, and “letting your mind destroy you.”
“You can be having a beautiful day, surrounded by friends and your brain can continuously ruin it,” Matheson explained. “No matter how good or bad your life is, you can still hate yourself. I’ve got to ask myself why am I feeling the ways I’m feeling?”
You can check out Pig Pen’s first blistering attack via the player up above.
As previously reported, Matheson — who had fronted hardcore band Hanging Hearts in the Nineties — is joined in Pig Pen by Alexisonfire guitarist Wade MacNeil, indie-country guitarist Daniel Romano, Romano’s brother Ian SKI Romano on drums, and Young Guv/Romano collaborator Tommy Major on bass.
The group began planning to make music as Pig Pen during the COVID pandemic. Inspired by the sounds of Eighties hardcore, the group quickly wrote 10 songs and promptly recorded them the next day. The album was engineered by Ian Romano, and later mixed by Arthur Rizk (Power Trip, Tomb Mold).
Mental Madness is out June 27th via Flatspot Records.
Pig Pen’s sold out first show took place last month at Toronto, Ontario’s Sneaky Dee’s club. A follow-up performance has yet to be announced.
Mental Madness tracklisting:
Rabid Beach
Heat Wave
Pig Pen
Power Love Train
Mental Mentality
Highway
Venom Moon Rising
Problem Mind
Howl & Veil
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