All right, y’all — today I’ll be treating you to two heaping helpings of fuzzed-out instrumental goodness, courtesy of la famiglia italiana who constitute the trio Prehistoric Pigs.

 

Prehistoric Pigs – Everything is Good (The Smoking Goat Records, 26 April 2015)

 

Prehistoric Pigs – The Fourth Moon (Go Down Records, 26 November 2021)

 

Looking at those two album covers above, you’d be forgiven for thinking they belong to two different bands with two very different sounds. I love the illustration on that first one, the close-up drawing of a savage-looking, gnarled old boar. But to be honest, that spacey, science-fictiony second artwork more closely matches the vibe of what you’ll find inside each of these records.

Everything is Good from 2015 features eight tracks (about an hour) of spacey-psychedelic-stoner grooves, while last month’s The Fourth Moon contains two fewer tracks (about about twenty minutes less) of more of the same. Each of these pieces is a drawn-out, exploratory journey in itself — material that feels like it must have been at least partially improvised, but always sounding cohesive and intentional, the obvious result of the chemistry of folks who have had a long history of working together. And as such, it comes as no surprise to learn that Prehistoric Pigs includes two brothers on guitar and bass with their cousin behind the drums.

Somewhere along the way on these series of journeys, the listener will experience the occasional freak-out: most notably in the aptly-titled “Hypnodope” on the earlier LP, including acid-trip spoken samples and a bouncy, straight-out-of-“Strawberry Fields” cello part adding a counterpoint to the other instruments.

And sometimes the music really cranks up the distortion and departs the stoner/psychedelic train station in search of more of a stoner/doom destination. “Crototon” and “Left Arm” from the newer album are a couple examples, as is closing track “Meteor 700” which consists mostly of a hypnotically repetitive distorted riff. Likewise “Universally Droning” is trancelike in its repetition of riffs that are all distorted to shit, with occasional sudden pauses to keep you on your toes, before entering a coda that’s all-the-way DOOOOOOM.

Regarding the title of their latest release, the band asked: “Have you ever ridden a space camel? It keeps on going until it reaches the fourth moon, where it drinks for a thousand years.” No idea what the hell any of that means, but it’s surprisingly very relatable as a description for the group’s music. “If you don’t have plans,” they added, “jump on!”

 

 

 

 

 

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http://prehistoricpigs.bandcamp.com
http://twitter.com/prehistoricpigs
 
http://thesmokinggoatrecords.bandcamp.com
http://www.godownrecords.com
http://twitter.com/GoDownRecords