Pig
Hurt People Hurt
Metropolis Records
Following a period of relative inactivity from around the release of 2005’s Pigmata through to 2016’s The Gospel, Raymond Watts has been releasing roughly an album a year, remix and reissue releases notwithstanding. It’s been a lot to follow to be honest, and while the initial rush of hearing the cult producer and performer back in the saddle, the quality and delivery of the material has been mixed, with some standouts, some comfortably fine records, and a few forgettable snoozers. With that in mind, 2026’s Hurt People Hurt is already fighting an uphill battle; even leaving aside very casual fans, Watts’ devoted fanbase have been trained to expect a few good songs, some filler and on average one quite good track, usually whichever one successfully pairs Watts’ powerful vocal charisma with a vocal hook and a solid riff.
To be perfectly frank, Hurt People Hurt doesn’t totally buck that trend in terms of quality, landing firmly in okay-to-not-bad territory. That said, it does show Watts stretching beyond the chunky guitar, croon-and-growl groove he’s been working for the better part of the last decade. Opening track “Tosca’s Kiss” returns to some of Pig’s earlier stylings with it’s rush of creepy piano and some subtle production and arrangement touches around its gritty bass and downtuned chug, finding a nice middle ground between studio orchestration and live rock n’ roll power. There are a few other moments of equal strength here, such as the title track, which has a nice bit of western twang and a properly catchy chorus, with Watts in his classic camp evil cowboy delivery. “Scars” relegates the guitars to edges of the track, instead relying on a variety of squelchy and squealing synths and one of Watts’ most theatrical deliveries to great effect. Hearing him invoke his sleazy preacher persona on the stomping slowburn of “Ruins” reminds you of his tremendous charisma, and why he’s maintained a following amongst industrial rock fans for all these years.
Sadly, there are just a few too many filler tracks in the mix, and while none of them is objectively poor, they do betray a reliance on just doing the cod-KMFDM thing (which ironically might still be better than most filler KMFDM songs these days) that has too often been a fallback for the project in recent years. “Quid Pro Quo” has moments of inspiration via the choral vocals and some fun horns and drum touches, but it all gets paved under by a dead boring guitars and a too weak chorus that flattens the song down when it should be getting its motor running. “Sex & Suicide” is about as chalk a song as you could expect from Pig these days, a decent little vocal melody on the chorus that can’t detract from the lack of substance behind all the sturm and drang in its delivery. Watts at least always sounds committed to what he’s doing on every track, but is sometimes sabotaged by a half-baked premise; see “Monkey See Monkey Do”, where he layers in some horrifyingly dated dubstep wubs, presumably to make a point about playing follow-the-leader creatively, a valid choice if those sounds weren’t completely absent from current music production.
It’s a lot easier to pick out the lesser moments on Hurt People Hurt simply because in fits and starts it threatens to rise above the decent but unexceptional standard of Pig’s modern material, which makes its shortcomings seem more glaring. Speculatively, Watt’s high rate of output could potentially have contributed to the unevenesss here; if so it’ll be interesting to hear if the next Pig album takes a little more time to dial in what really works here, and spread it across the entirety of a record.
