The Network - This Is Your Pig's Portrait

The New Hampshire band The Network blasts upon the scene with their scorching debut. This Is Your Pig's Portrait is a memorable title, and the band does their best to make the rest of the album as memorable. The songs are a twisted amalgamation of hardcore, metal, metalcore, noisecore and death metal.

The Network wraps elements of melody within dissonant guitar riffs, breakdowns and blast beats. And with four different vocalists there's never a shortage of noise. The main vocals are lower pitched hardcore shrieks, with the other guys chiming in with everything from high pitched screams to death metal growls.

This is a band that likes to change things up. Right in the middle of all the crushing metal songs is an acoustic number with melodic vocals. You wonder if somehow a different band's song got thrown on this album, but then they return to their more extreme style. They also throw in a brief instrumental toward the end of the CD for yet another change of pace.

This is a technically sound and very diverse album. I wish there would have been a few more hooks to make the songs even more memorable.