A young Pig Destroyer / Photo courtesy of the artistIt's hard to believe that Pig Destroyer is about to turn 20, and even harder to fathom the extent of the impact they've had on extreme music during the course of those two decades. It all started with a demo in 1997, and led to a discography peppered with landmark releases like Prowler in the Yard, Terrifyer, Phantom Limb, and Painter of Dead Girls—the latter of which is being released through Robotic Empire as a deluxe reissue.Painter of Dead Girls (a compilation originally released by the same label in 2004) is one of the band's few non-Relapse albums, and will come prettied up with a live track, a few cover songs, an expanded layout, and a bonus track that hardly anyone's ever heard: "Delusional Supremacy 2k." The song was recorded prior to the Prowler in the Yard sessions, and ended up buried on a limited sampler… until now!Pig Destroyer vocalist and lyricist JR Hayes gave us the inside story behind the release:"Painter of Dead Girls is a record that really benefits from being on vinyl and the crushing new mastering job by James Plotkin makes it sound better than ever. This record combines the two EPs (split with Benumb and split with Gnob) that we released right before Prowler in the Yard. The material for the Benumb split was written in a couple days and recorded in one quick session the weekend before we recorded Prowler, and once we did that album, we kind of forgot about these two EPs, which is a shame, 'cause I think this might be some of our most vicious stuff. Fast-forward a couple months and somebody smashes my car window and steals my backpack, which contains a bunch of my notebooks. Talk about depressing. I thought the lyrics for the Benumb split were gone, and I never bothered to sit down and try to figure them out again.Fast-forward a few years and Robotic Empire is compiling Painter of Dead Girls for its original CD release. Andy asks for the lyrics and I'm like [tugging at shirt collar] 'Uh… about that…' I mean, it's one thing to not print the lyrics on purpose, but who doesn't even know their own lyrics? It was kind of embarrassing. Fast-forward to a couple years ago, and I discover a stash of forgotten notebooks while I'm moving. Pinned inside one, I find a crumpled sheet that has most of the lyrics for the Benumb split, and this inspires me to actually sit down and figure the rest of them out. Fast-forward to now, and here they are, in print for the first time ever, along with some brand-new artwork from my favorite artist Chris "Crude" Taylor and first-class packaging courtesy of renowned music pimp Andy Low and the Robotic Empire. I can't wait to hold one of these babies in my grubby hands.Long live Grind. And Virginia."Robotic Empire's deluxe reissue of 'Painter of Dead Girls' is out May 20; preorder it on iTunes, Bandcamp, or go hard with the vinyl version here.
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