An ideal is usually sold as an aspiration: polished, desirable, harmless. Repeat it often enough, and it becomes a measurement of success; attach it to a nation, and it begins to sound like political doctrine. Who is seen, who is erased, and who gets classified as beautiful, useful, obedient, or disposable? PIG takes that glossy phrase and feeds it through distortion, machine vision, and command.
UK industrial glam maverick Raymond Watts, aka PIG, returns with his latest single, “An American Ideal of Beauty,” out July 31st via Metropolis Records. Co-written with old friend Marc Heal of Cubanate and C-Tec, who contributes co-vocals and synthesizers, the track also features Günter Schulz (ex-KMFDM) sharing guitar duties with Watts and his regular songwriting partner Jim Davies (ex-The Prodigy and Pitchshifter).
“An American Ideal of Beauty” delivers classic industrial rock at full weight. Thick guitars grind against a regimented beat as synths jab through the arrangement and metal vocal growls force the lower register into something almost animal. Watts rises above the mass with his familiar theatrical vocal swagger, stretching syllables into decadent declarations before snapping back into clipped commands. Heal’s co-vocal adds another rough-edged authority, while Schulz and Davies keep the guitars dense, physical, and sharply defined.
Watts explains:
“I wanted to distill and hone the sound of the current PIG album, ‘Hurt People Hurt’, so inviting my old partners in swine Marc and Günter to join Jim and myself in the studio seemed the perfect blend of brutality and beauty to feed, fertilise and transmogrify the hog into Hogzilla. This new single was the first result of our work as a quartet, hammered in the heat of the anvil of hurt.”
Directed by E Gabriel Edvy for Blackswitch Labs, the accompanying video makes looking itself feel coercive. Eyes and faces are boxed, duplicated, enlarged, and tagged with computer-vision graphics, as though every human feature were being measured by an automated judge. Watts performs within a narrow brick passage and against near-total blackness, his figure ruptured by washes of red, white, and electric blue.
Words such as CHAOS, LIES, SHOOT, DUTY, BEAUTY, JESUS, INSURRECTION, and SHUT UP strike the screen as orders, accusations, and advertising copy. Human faces in harsh negative share space with horses, insects, forest growth, fire, floodwater, television static, isolated roads, and a sterile server corridor. The rapid editing expands the title beyond cosmetic standards, placing glamour, violence, faith, technology, and civic obedience inside the same system of classification. Beauty becomes another category assigned by the machine, with the viewer positioned as both observer and object of observation.
Watch the video for An American Ideal of Beauty below:
The recording sessions produced three additional songs, all of which join “An American Ideal of Beauty” on the forthcoming eight-track EP, Dirt Box. Its four originals are paired with remixes by Cyanotic, Stabbing Westward’s Chris Hall, Combichrist, and Rabbit Junk.
Dirt Box arrives September 4th, 2026, through Metropolis Records and is available to pre-order through Bandcamp. “An American Ideal of Beauty” can be streamed here.
The EP follows PIG’s current album, Hurt People Hurt, released May 22nd through Metropolis. Largely written by Watts and Davies, the record further develops PIG’s union of industrial force, dance-floor discipline, theatrical excess, and Watts’ barbed gallows humour.
Watts has spent more than four decades working throughout industrial and alternative music. Alongside his extensive catalogue as PIG, he was a founding member of KMFDM and played a central writing and vocal role in the band’s work during the ’80s and ’90s. His collaborations have included Einstürzende Neubauten, Foetus, Psychic TV, Schwein, and Schaft, while his music for fashion has accompanied Alexander McQueen’s Plato’s Atlantis and the exhibitions Punk: Chaos to Couture and Savage Beauty.
PIG will take Hurt People Hurt across North America beginning August 26th, with Cyanotic joining the tour. The itinerary includes appearances at Cold Waves XIV in Los Angeles, Austin, and Chicago, followed by four UK shows in December.
Watch the Hurt People Tour trailer below:
PIG — Hurt People Tour: North America 2026
August 26 — Minneapolis, MN
August 27 — Lawrence, KS
August 28 — Denver, CO
August 29 — Salt Lake City, UT
August 31 — Garden City, ID
September 2 — Spokane, WA
September 3 — Bellingham, WA
September 4 — Seattle, WA
September 5 — Portland, OR
September 7 — Eugene, OR
September 8 — Eureka, CA
September 9 — Sacramento, CA
September 10 — San Francisco, CA
September 11 — Los Angeles, CA — Cold Waves XIV
September 12 — Santa Ana, CA
September 13 — Phoenix, AZ
September 14 — El Paso, TX
September 16 — Dallas, TX
September 17 — San Antonio, TX
September 18 — Austin, TX — Cold Waves XIV
September 19 — Little Rock, AR
September 20 — St. Louis, MO
September 22 — Madison, WI
September 23 — Davenport, IA
September 25 — Chicago, IL — Cold Waves XIV
September 26 — Cleveland, OH
September 27 — Baltimore, MD
September 29 — Syracuse, NY
October 1 — Philadelphia, PA
October 2 — Brooklyn, NY
October 3 — Millersville, PA
October 4 — Richmond, VA
October 5 — Greenville, SC
October 7 — Atlanta, GA
October 8 — Orlando, FL
October 9 — Tampa, FL
October 13 — Columbus, OH
October 14 — Pittsburgh, PA
October 15 — Hamilton, ON
October 16 — Montreal, QC
October 17 — Toronto, ON
October 18 — Detroit, MI
Tickets and further information are available through the official PIG tour page.
PIG — UK Dates: December 2026
December 10 — Manchester, UK — Rebellion
December 11 — Bradford, UK — Nightrain
December 12 — Glasgow, UK — Ivory Blacks
December 13 — London, UK — The Lexington
UK tickets are available through Stigmata.
Follow PIG:
Official website
Instagram — Raymond Watts
Instagram — PIG
Facebook
YouTube
Spotify
Bandcamp
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