The Full Story
About Country Killers
A 16-track descent into the heart of darkness. Country Killers blends country, punk, blues, and banjo-driven avant-garde to soundtrack what the artist calls “the age of the pig.” Murder ballads, anti-war anthems, twisted comedy — this is a raw, fearless, and darkly funny album for an increasingly brutal world.
THE MURDER BALLADS in the age of the pig.
Thunder Follows the Light, The Judge, and What Happened are three murder ballads recounting three very different crimes. The Judge and What Happened are stripped-back, guitar-driven folk-country ballads, while Thunder Follows the Light opens the set with a full-band country production.
Also in this twisted corner of the album: When I Fall Down, a traditional, thigh-slapping country jig, sung by a mass murderer who justifies his sins as divinely ordained—Jesus made him do it.
Fun fact: The Judge was inspired by an episode of Chris Carter’s Millennium series.
THE AGE OF THE PIG
There is a recurring theme throughout the album, presented more obviously at the beginning with Pig's Prelude and Pig's Fly, and we are of course talking about the image of the pig. Here Madadkin is referencing a personal joke that he tells, wherein he associates the astrological shifting of epochs, the precessional ages, in which he jokes that we are now living, not in the Age of Aquarius but the age of the pig. The pig is thus embodied in this album in the form of the serial killer, the farmer-judge who is eaten by his pigs, Christ's exorcism of the pigs, or the political pigs (Putin and Trump). As part of this pig world, the song Lord of the Flies is a gritty, guitar-thumping retelling of William Golding’s novel, sung from the eerie perspective of the pig’s head on a stick—the grotesque idol of the stranded boys’ descent into savagery.
POLITICAL SONGS
This set takes aim at corruption, delusion, and authoritarian love affairs.
The Politician’s Song 2.0 is a banjo-driven update of the original track from the now-lost Talking to Trains (2016), once again skewering the madness and corruption of Donald Trump.
The Bear & The Eagle uses traditional country stylings to chronicle the strange romance between Trump and Putin, while Song to Midas tells the tale of a president who believes everything he touches turns to gold—until it doesn’t.
Closing the set is The Trees Are Gonna Die, a fiddle-and-banjo protest song originally written for the “Save the Trees” movement in Madrid, opposing the city’s reckless felling of trees.
METAPHYSICAL STUFF
These songs take a wry look at belief, salvation, and spiritual delusion.
When Your Ma Has Seen the Light returns from the Talking to Trains album (2016), newly produced and remixed to bring fresh life to its irreverent portrait of the so-called Saviour’s real story.
For Those Who Are Waiting is a direct message to Bob Dylan, critiquing his born-again Christian phase with equal parts disappointment and dark affection.
THE LONER
One track stands apart—both in theme and tone.
Bar Branded Blues is a raw, slide-guitar-driven blues in open D♯ tuning, channeling the confessions of a bar-dwelling alcoholic who wears his ruin like a badge of honour.