Cable

Never compromising, Connecticut’s Cable have caused hearing loss and headaches for ten long years, and their sixth album, Pigs Never Fly, finds the band growing older and wiser with more rock-based chords and song structures. Seventeen-minute opener "I Love It When You Crawl” smears its Cavity-like sludge over tarnation but tempers the weight with dense psychedelic tones reminiscent of Zabriskie Point-era Pink Floyd. Beginning with a G.G. Allin quote, "Empty & Loaded” kicks off with riffs not unlike Jet or White Stripes, though front man Peter Farris makes sure that his vocals could not be remotely interpreted as mainstream. "It’s My Right To Be An Asshole” starts out like a dirge-y Clutch but soon devolves into swampy grooves reminiscent of their cover of the Marshall Tucker Band’s "Can’t You See?” off 2001’s Northern Failures — then ends with acoustic guitar, piano and lilting female vocals. "Shovel’s Progress” is a punkier doom slight that sees some throbbing Isis action in the latter half, with the Southern-rock-tinged "The Reason I’m Poor” grabbing the baton and racing forward. "Human Landfill” continues in an Isis vein until founding four-stringer Randy Larsen and drummer Vic Szalaj break the door down with whisky-fattened, Sabbath-ian rhythms; the title track closer lopes off to die like a wounded buck. Though not as staggering as Northern Failures or even 1999’s Gutter Queen, Pigs Never Fly still reduces the competition to simpering infants.