Church of Industrial Music: Pigface - Gub

This is another band that I first heard through the same friend that introduced me to industrial to begin with. If you aren't familiar with Pigface, it's an industrial "supergroup" that has had a rotating cast through the years, with Martin Atkins as the only constant member, though others such as Chris Connelly would be recurring appearances. This was their first album, released in 1991, and featured Atkins, Bill Rieflin, Ogre, David Yow, Trent Reznor, Chris Connelly, Paul Barker, Matt Schultz, and En Esch. Steve Albini is also credited with the album's production, to add to the underground star power.

This album remains one of my personal favorite Pigface albums. I genuinely enjoy every track on this album, though "Tapeworm", "Suck" (which would later appear in a more electronic version on NIN's Broken EP), and "Tailor Made" are perhaps my favorites. While the sound is a bit more "traditional" than most of what I listen to, due to the live, acoustic drums and abundance of electric guitar and bass, it's definitely on the more experimental side of rock (if indeed you even want to call it that). Fun fact: this is one of the albums that I consider most responsible for inspiring me to pick up the bass myself.

Listen to Gub on spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/4wuTYh1jg0UM1aswOT6iHr?autoplay=true&v=L

Though later Pigface albums retained the industrial-rock sort of feel to one degree or another, they all sound and feel a bit different, which makes sense due to the rotating membership. This is perhaps the most minimalistic of them. The instrumentation is incredibly sparse, but it really works quite well. While I can think of several industrial rock bands & albums that I might compare to this in a general sense, this album definitely has it's own sort of thing going on that I don't really think I've heard anywhere else.

This is another one that I still listen to fairly regularly. The follow-up live album (Welcome to Mexico... Asshole) also gets a lot of play, and also comes highly recommended.