Upon first encounter, "Ultranon" by Pigswill feels like a trip to the dark end of a tunnel in which no one told you what the ride was supposed to be. If industrial music is the grand black sheep of the sonic family, then Pigswill is the forgotten cousin that only shows up for funerals and comes bearing gifts wrapped in noise, unease, and sporadic bursts of apocalyptic bliss. This is not an album that demands attention; it dares you to discover it.

A bit of backstory: Pigswill, the brainchild of Nick Andren, has been sloshing around the murky waters of the industrial underground for over a decade, yet it remains curiously absent from broader discourse. A compilation like "Ultranon" feels less like a “release” and more like a defragmentation of Andren’s hard drive. Not that this is a bad thing - it’s a glorious thing if you like your soundscapes jagged, rough, and unapologetically alienating.

What you get here is less “goth-industrial stompers” and more “cold percussive skeletons floating in a broken bath of acid”. There's a distinct refusal to adhere to a single style or even coherence - Pigswill hops from the barely-there post-industrial hum of "Grove" to the frenetic, almost gleeful disintegration of “Stollwurm” like a cat toying with the last minutes of its prey. In fact, the whole record feels like it's built for people who "enjoy" trying to make sense of something intentionally elusive. There's no comfort zone here - only dark corners, eerily flickering neon signs, and a soundtrack that’s in no hurry to help you figure out where you're going.

The highlight tracks on "Ultranon" will undoubtedly vary depending on the listener's relationship with genre obscurity, but “Stalking” and “Lyre Liar” stand out for their sense of impending doom, as if they're breathing down your neck while you're trying to make your way through a fogged-up back alley at midnight. Yes, the Throbbing Gristle cover of “Lyre Liar” seems obligatory, but Pigswill injects it with enough of their signature dissonance to keep it fresh, even as the specter of Genesis P-Orridge lingers over it.

Then there's the inspired madness of "Cobra-Headed Scepter", a collaboration with ThisMachineKillsMusic, which can only be described as what happens when you forget to feed your drum machine for a week and it starts gnawing at the wires in protest. It's a fitting crescendo of absurdity for an album that seems to revel in its own discordant, chaotic beauty. The subtle brilliance of Andren lies in his ability to throw together scraps of sound and make them feel like they "shouldn't" work, but somehow, they do - just not in the way you'd expect.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper avant-industrial release without a cover of "Warm Leatherette". By this point, Pigswill's take on The Normal's unsettling anthem feels less like a cover and more like a warping of its original intent - a deconstructed car crash where the wreckage has been lovingly arranged to suit Andren's twisted vision. It's ironic, sure, but also lovingly deranged, which is exactly the kind of sensibility Pigswill thrives on.

"Ultranon" may not be for everyone - "thank God". If you're someone who prefers their industrial neat, sleek, and served with a side of well-groomed melancholia, this record will laugh at your discomfort before it plunges you into yet another spastic, churning noise pit. For those who are up for the challenge, though, there's something uniquely satisfying about surrendering to its stubborn disobedience. It doesn’t play by any rules, and it certainly doesn’t care if you understand it.

To call this album “ironically obscure” is almost too easy - it’s obscure because it has no desire to fit into any neatly packaged scene, trend, or playlist. It feels as though Andren crafted it not for an audience, but for himself, and therein lies its most endearing quality: an unapologetic commitment to the art of "not" catering to expectation. And that, in today's hyper-curated musical world, feels like a breath of fetid, stale air - exactly what the doctor ordered.