Social commentary in music is on the rise. At last, after years of rock bands kicking out insipid songs about how great they think they are, and indie bands banging on about how depressed they are since their last breakup, we are finally getting to a place where musicians are remembering just what a great platform they have and are using it to comment on the state of the world. Something that music was always great at but which, to a greater extent, got lost along the way. As musicians lost their balls, music lost its voice.
Well, not anymore. Shouting from the rooftops, making yourself heard, and having something powerful and important to say is back in fashion, it’s happening right across the western world as dark forces are once again on the rise, and Two Tonne Machete are joining those once-voices-in-the-wilderness to help them become an unavoidable choir of the discontent.
“Pigs Pigs” as the title might suggest, is a response to the increasingly heavy-handed tactics of police when dealing with even the most peaceful protests in the UK, to the fact that we live in a time when carrying specific placards can lead to arrest. It is also a reminder of the shocking scenes at the candlelit vigil held for Sarah Everard on Clapham Common, where women mourning her murder were met with state-sanctioned police aggression.
And if the lyrics are uncompromising, the music is the perfect delivery system for them, raw-edged, razor-sharp, industrial guitars and depth-charge bass lines being driven to the sonic brink by pummelling drums; a punch to the face of complacency, a necessary shock to the collective system.
Bruising, brutal, and bombastic but in all the right ways, this is the sound of the sonic wake-up call for a world where, if we do nothing, we will find ourselves sleepwalking into the abyss of authoritarianism. “Pigs Pigs” is a fist in the air demand for change and the soundtrack to a revolution that is waiting in the wings, ready for the prompt to usher it ion stage for a dramatic final act.
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