LAVA LAND

Time to look into a pretty obscure album I found through Youtube recommendations, drawing me in with its oddly enticing cover art. The album itself is some softer edged math rock, still with mind bending time signature changes at an almost constant rate, but incorporating more of the post hardcore side of it, particularly midwest emo, with a lot of tonal similarities to bands such as Sunny Day Real Estate. The album is very short, only being a 24 minute EP., but it's definitely packed with high quality moments, and would definitely be an album I'd recommend to newcomers of the genre, both for the way it displays the more complex side of it, and how it remains more accessible, both with the lack of abrasive qualities, and its short length.

This said, I do find that the album on the whole definitely has some issues in terms of being entirely memorable, as it tends to stick to one tone, being quite optimistic and energetic with a hint of melancholy, and then never really changes all that much. What ends up happening is it creates an album that while good all the way through, rarely ever reaches any kind of amazing peak, and making its brevity a major asset, preventing anything from becoming tedious. Bug Stomp already jumps straight into the thick of it, with a few slow chords before bursting with energy, moving between a central riff and insane instrumental passages, having great variety to stop it from getting dull. Caramel is my personal favourite track here, not just for the memorability of it, but for its difference in sound, incorporating some light djent elements into the mix in a way that never feels overbearing, still sticking strongly to the core identity of the album, but with a slightly harder edge at points, sounding like Animals As Leaders at points. The remaining tracks all have very similar structure to them, with a multitude of layered, complex rhythms and then repeating these a few times in order to allow the listener more of a chance to wrap their head around everything. This, while formulaic, works well for the sole reason that the band is clearly excellent at what they do,managing to at the very least, make each moment extremely impressive, at times lovely to listen to, especially the amazing drumming.

On the whole, this is a pretty decent album that I definitely will recommend to people wanting to get into math rock, as I find it to be more accessible in a multitude of ways, at worst being inoffensive, at best being amazing. I do wish that this band has stuck around for longer, because I could have seen them making some absolutely incredible music down the line, but as it stands this EP, while not essential, is definitely worth a few listens, and is a great starting point in the genre.

Best songs: Caramel

Weakest songs: Anthropology Anthology

Verdict: A fun little math rock album that while never outright bad, does tend to become a bit samey in some sections, due to the extremely similar sense of mood employed throughout. The technical aspect of things shows that this band was seriously talented. The short length of it works well, as the album is consistently enjoyable and doesn't hit the point where it becomes boring.

A Sure Math Rock Essential from the Genre's Second Wave

As stated in articles and by fans on- and offline everywhere, Piglet's debut and only release, 2005's Lava Land, is an essential record of thoughtful, jazzy, earworm Math Rock. What's really amazing to me, since first becoming a fan when I was in college, is just how young the band members appeared to be. After much digging, I sadly couldn't find their ages, but after refreshing myself with a clip from their performance at some frat kid's birthday party (Mickey's, if you really want to know), they had to have been in their early-20s. In the present, surely inspired by their ilk, I do know a few kids in my own local music scene that have accomplished, in my mind, something comparable, but... we're talkin' 15 years later. Piglet were trailblazers for a new era of the genre. I can only assume they were in unfortunate and relative obscurity until, it appears, a now 9 year old YouTube upload of the full album. This then has to be one of the greatest examples of "YouTubecore", if there ever was one. According to an interview with their bassist Ezra I found, it was key albums by Don Caballero, Hella and, now unsurprisingly, the Bad Plus that helped shape the sound of Lava Land. Now, with the task of being as objective as possible...

Lava Land starts off with a song I could jam to if ever it would happen to come on, the infectious "Bug Stomp". What I'll say here, as I've mentioned above with their obvious tendencies toward riffing on jazz, I would definitely consider Piglet to be progressive. When it comes to Math Rock now, my view of the genre shaped by about 10 years of listening, I frequently first think "boring"--many bands are either derivative or completely indistinguishable from each other... Not so with Piglet and many of their peers, and of course, then, what came before them. With the legacies of such interesting and undoubtedly progressive and experimental bands such as Polvo, Faraquet and Slint (coming out of the East Coast's Post-Hardcore scenes), this new wave of bands came forth. Alongside Piglet were Tera Melos, Giraffes? Giraffes!, Hella, Planets and TTNG. This legacy, now through them, carries on to such great current acts as Monobody, Floral and The Most. [I would like to mention too, now and before then, the absolutely quintessential function Math Rock has had in Emo. Such bands that should interest fans of these include (first and foremost, despite all warranted controversy) Jank, the even more controversial offshoot (and at times incredibly progressive) Fail Better(,) Heal Faster, Origami Angel, Sports(.) (they love punctuation in Emo), Perspective(,) a Lovely Hand to Hold, Charmer, and I Love Your Lifestyle. Great bands, all, in my opinion.] All that said, back to "Bug Stomp", this song grooves and hits and, especially with Matt's drumming at the end, really shows off their technical proficiencies.

"Caramel" is next, with at first soft, even bucolic beauty, the song bounces in and right on out of a quick section of heaviness. Beefy, chugging guitars subside into a new theme, with rolling riffs and tasty chording. What follows this song is likely my favorite of the bunch, "Little Bubble, Where You Going?" This song is one such aforementioned earworm and features a lot of compositional knack and interest. The riffs roll comfortably and confidently over the striding of the drums. Just excellent, through and through. Up next is the forward-driving "Anthropology Anthology" (I always love a great name). This song simply does not let up. It's not as compositionally complex as they get, but it's still a great song.

Continuing in the second half is the rolling hypnosis of the also excellently titled "Pangea Reunion" . This features an awesome thematic main riff. A big'n this'n is. In its middle, the rhythm section bashes over this really great tapping riff. All slows to a drunken, stumbling rhythm. I mean, this alone takes a lot of skill; not unreminiscent of some early Tera Melos. In this last section, the rhythm shifts again to a very groovy beat. It picks up, but maintains the head-boppin' awesome. Finally, we have the delicious, sort of psychedelic "Plastic Stars, Cotton Highways", an excellent closer to an excellent release. This song continues in the forward trajectory but with all of the compositional depth of before.

Not perfect, but damn fine...

True Rate: 4.75/5.00