Chinese grindcore band with pig for a lead singer, Pig Cage squeals discontent with the government
- Pig Cage, a grindcore band from Inner Mongolia, uses pig sounds instead of human vocals
- The band’s creator, Maihem, says he didn’t like the sound of his own voice, so he decided to use a porcine substitute
Squeals and grunts are part of every metal band’s musical lexicon, and now one act from China is hogging the limelight with a novel approach. Meaty blast beats, muddy breakdowns and oinking vocals are elements that are not exactly unusual to grindcore – an extreme branch of the metal genre – but there’s a twist in the tail: this particular band is fronted by a pig. The name? Pig Cage.
“I hate the government but I love my country,” he says, over the phone. “I use metaphors in my music to express my ideas about wanting to change the government through presenting two opposite sides: sometimes I am the butcher, but sometimes I am also the victim.”
He continues: “There is lots of unfairness and adversity in China … Most of time I feel disappointed about myself and life; I would rather be a pig.”
Released last year, Pig Cage’s full-length debut hams it up with a rollicking maelstrom of porcine fury, executed with a sense of humour characteristic of grindcore groups, which typically choose graphic and provocative names, song titles and lyrics. (Infant Annihilator and Prostitute Disfigurement are among the printable ones). With bona fide bangers such as Pornographic Legend, Psychotic Lover and Dissection (Sepsism), the nine tracks on “Screaming Pig in China” stay true to the genre, using sex, gore and black humour to lance social and political concerns.
Like other bands fronted by non-humans, such as Hatebeak, which features a parrot on the mic, and the New York band Caninus, which features duelling dog barks, Pig Cage proves its chops, combining brutal gutturals with a relentless guitar grind. The album’s second track, Syringe of Meat, whips distorted revving with a hog’s agitated howls; Paranoid Personality Disorder has a distinct rhythmic bounce; the six-second Chinese Band is sudden frenzy of sound ending with a burst of flatulence, echoing grindcore’s British forefathers, Napalm Death, and their highly influential, yet comically brief album “Scum”.