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Righteous Pigs > Stress Related > Reviews
Righteous Pigs - Stress Related

In the Outskirts of Infinity - 94%

grain_silo, January 6th, 2016

I was introduced to Righteous Pigs long after I had discovered the genius of Napalm Death’s “F.E.T.O.” and my brother came to me with their first album and I thought it was rough. I had just started to grow fond of Repulsion and some of Carcass’ Reek of Putrefaction but something about “Live and Learn” was hard to digest. Being a lover of the “F.E.T.O.” style of grind with a lot of guttural vocals and some death metal that blends with the grind led my brother to let me know that Righteous Pigs has a second album. I was not disappointed with what I was hearing.

First, this album sounds much more polished than their previous album. I’ve learned to love their first album but this album really grabs me. I love the production. The guitars are low, heavy, and sound amazing when they really grind. I would really love some more bass but overall it’s a beautiful sound. I think what really grabs me are the drums. The snare drum clicks and never gets lost among the speed. Not to mention the drummer does some really cool stuff. “Crack under Pressure” is a great example of creative drumming while maintaining speed.

This album does something that I was missing on the first album. “Eulogy” is so much different. It opens with an amazing riff that builds up into a death metal masterpiece while keeping the grind. Joe Caper really expands on his vocal abilities on this album. I love the guttural voice he does on this album. Don’t worry though, he still has his amazing punk/hardcore voice that dominates the faster, more grind parts of the songs. The riffs are absolutely amazing. “Boundaries Unknown” starts with a great riff and leads into what some people could call death metal but still has a very punk/grind feel. The songs on this album are much longer and have more structure but the grind that was on the first album definitely appears pretty often. I personally love the more diverse sound on this album. This album steps up on the riffs and the diversity but it is a lot less of a grindcore album than “Live and Learn” but it’s still amazing grind when it wants to be. “Overdose” is probably my favorite song on here. Very thrash/punk sound with Joe’s amazing hardcore vocals. It’s almost catchy, this is the kind of stuff that gets stuck in your head and I think it’s a great thing.

Overall, this album delivers in all the grind departments. Yes, it’s not nearly as straight grind like their first album. I would definitely defend this album to those who would say it’s not a grindcore album. Almost every song is slower but that doesn’t mean they left out the speed. Most songs speed up eventually. This is an amazing album. If you want a grindcore album, you’re set with this album. If you want some death metal, you’re good. If you want some punk/hardcore sounding stuff, you’re good. This album incorporates so many different genres, it’s very accessible to fans of a bunch of different styles.

I would highly recommend this to fans of Napalm Death and Assuck. Maybe Defecation. Happy listening!

Best tracks, “Eulogy”, “Crack Under Pressure”, and “Overdose”.

Holy Mackerel - 92%

Inoculated_Life, July 10th, 2011

When I first heard Righteous Pigs I thought they were the one of the fastest grindcore bands that had been around the bend.. Well, I was right in one sense, the first album, but totally wrong in another. After the first album, Righteous Pigs went in a different direction, a slower more death metal direction. On my first listen I immediately turned it off, because I was originally hoping for fast in your face grind. But to my surprise, after listening to it a couple of more times, or should I say giving it a chance, I loved it more and more.

The production on Stress Related is just about perfect in my own opinion. The guitar is there and sounds great; It is a very down tuned hardcore sounding guitar. The drums, sound awesome and crisp, can't hear bass, but then again.. Now the vocals are more reminiscent of the first album, in which they are just a hardcore style of singing. I personally love the vocals, I think Joe Caper does an amazing job with his hardcore style of singing. If you like good quality in production and still like Righteous Pigs, I'd say give this a listen, or numerous times at that.

The songs are great slowed down - hardcore - death - grindcore style. I don't honestly know a single genre that can define this album completely. Each song is definitely slow, but has some parts that speed up. One song that is kind of different that the rest is Eulogy; This song has Joe Caper doing a very guttural style of singing which is different than the rest of the album. Now the rest of the album has the same singing, a hardcore, crossover vocal style. The riffs on this album are very good slowed down death metal riffs, with Mitch Harris (Napalm Death) on guitar I can't see anything going wrong here.

My favorite tracks would be "Turmoil" "Overdose" Fly the Friendly Skies" "Crack Under Pressure" and "Incarcerated," but don't just listen to my favorites, because this whole album is worth every minute.

Extremely characteristic but dragging... - 70%

morbert, October 15th, 2008

Within a year after the first album, “Stress Related” was released and featured some major differences. Most notible were the production, which was focussed more on mainstream death metal, an enormous decrease in average pace and Joe Caper‘s vocals.

The album has some re-recorded tunes from “Live And Learn”, and the CD version even had no less than four of them! Of course I would have loved to hear “I Hope You Die in a Hotel Fire”with this sound, but it’s great as it is really. The drums and guitars sound massive, clear and brutal compared to their earlier works yet thesnare drums on this album seems to clip. I wonder what the reason was to make it sound like this, but it is something which really tempers my enthousiasm from time to time.

Some songs here tend to be over strechted, like “Boundries Unknown”, “Overdose” and “Manson Klan”. Yet it’s the song “Overdose” which is one of the most notible ones on this album. This is because of Joe’s vocal performance. Even though he’s grunting more in a death metal proof way on this album, he still sounds as if he’s trying to grunt in key, resulting in a funny (almost comical) hardcore punk approach to thrashing grindcore. Believe me, once you’ve heard him sing on “Overdose” you will never forget this man!

He tries to play safe on opener “Eulogy” and “Open wound” but he just can’t escape his own typical style no matter how hard he tries. Why should he try anyway? His voice is of enormous importance to the over all sound of Righteous Pigs. Just like Mitch Harris’ riffs really. Without Joe’s vocals a lot of songs here would sound like early-nineties Napalm Death just because of Harris’ typical riffing. Well, make that Napalm Death without Pintado’s Terrorizing riffs of course. The point being, Mitch Harris’ riffs always sound like Mitch Harris’ riffs. And this, of course, is what any selfrespecting musician hopes to achieve someday!

Because of the band trying to put more thrash breaks and grooving death metal influences into their already hardcore punk laden adolescence, the result is a remarkable characteristic type of crossover. As I said at the beginning of my review the average pace is quite low compared to their previous album. As a result the album lacks certain dynamics and tends to drag relatively often which is really a shame since the band can write some really effective slow parts with nice hooks (“Open wound”). Therefor I tend to get distracted after a few songs each time I play “Stress Related”.

The best way really to enjoy these songs individually is to shuffle the tracklisting with songs from the “Live And Learn” album. In conclusion this is a good collection of some great songs but “Stress Related” is not interesting enough to be played as a whole. Quite a shame.

Great album. - 90%

docgorpon, May 19th, 2006

Hyper-original sounding metal from this band. Is it metal? Is it grind? I don't know. There are very few leads or blast beats, and most of the vocals are a harsh, intelligible yell as opposed to the usual mic swallowing, gutteral growls you hear in grind or death metal (except for the first song). Joe Caper has more in common with Henry Rollins than, say, Napalm Death era Lee Dorrian. But whatever it is, it's great. The guitar riffs are among the best I've ever heard for this type of music. The drumming is pretty cool as well. The main bummer about this album is the production, specifially the mix. The guitar is *ok* sounding, though a little on the tinny side. And the snare is so loud in the mix that it'll make your ears bleed if listen to it loudly for any length of time. In general, the mix has too much high end, and not nearly enough bottom end, ruining what could be a perfect album of the genre.
In any case, the tunes are amazing. For the most part, it's mid-paced mosh metal in which the guitar riffs make great use of highly original picking patterns. It makes for a *grooving* record that's actually quite unique. Overall, extremely intense. And a vocalist that you can understand, word for word.