Cows: Sorry In Pig Minor

Most bands of Cows' ilk—twisted, angry noise outfits like Surgery, The Cherubs, and Halo Of Flies—have broken up by now. After Cows' most recent release, 1996's abysmal Whorn, it seemed it probably should have followed suit. Happily, there's still a bit of life left in the geezers, though Sorry In Pig Minor shows only a trace of the frenzied pace laid down in such Cows classics as "Heave Ho," and that won't be enough to keep many fans happy. The album shows the members of Cows feeling their way around again, trying on different sounds and influences. Some are compelling, like the Godbullies-like spoken-word rant "Cabin Man" and the mid-tempo rocker "No, I'm Not Coming Out"; the band even tries out faux-Latin beats on "El Shiksa." Producer King Buzzo (of Melvins fame) succeeds at grunging up the mix, usually just to a muddy sound-barrage effect, but sometimes making the sound so fuzzy that Sorry In Pig Minor sounds like a basement tape. If nothing else, the song titles, which include "Eureka! Funday!" and "Saliva Of The Fittest," are more clever than those of the average band. It's not the Cows you'd hear during the band's glory years, but Sorry is a marked improvement for a band that had looked to be fast approaching the end.