This second full-length release from the shadowy, abrasive pig-dudes Mongrel Country has at least two personalities, both of them twisted.

Starting with base horror, it flips a genre switch mid-way, morphing into a redemptive spaghetti western. The journey from harsh animal noise-groove to a plodding low-down twang begins with Smile Of The Crocodile , something akin to a life-or-death parkour sprint through a sickly buzzing slaughterhouse. Over the next seven tracks, that image is pulled back through a grimy blood-stained window to reveal its place in a lonely, echoing ghost-town. Neither atmosphere gives you much daylight.

Mongrel Country are alternative in a legit way that most acts prefixed with ‘alt’ generally aren’t. Their fractured nature comes from the two power-sharing vocalist/guitarists, propelled by two drummers. It’s a lineup challenge that isn’t easy to rise to, but one that makes for interesting tunes.

Personality number one, Max Ducker, snarls a distorted path through the first three tracks, leading a barrage of purposely hideous scratch-fuzz guitars. His animalism saturates the tunes: Hogtied, Skin Of The Rhino and Smile Of The Crocodile.

It’s balanced by the haunting human wailing of Dean Anthonisz, most effectively in Jesus, Don’t Make Me Kill That Woman, where he drops the disc’s pace a few notches. His follow-up My Gun Shoots Out Love is even more drowsily profane. It’s here that Mongrel Country lay on the depth with added cello and layers of backing vocals.

Ducker’s return to lead vocal duties in Like An Old Suitcase suggests a new breed of countrified post-rock that tips Tom Waits’ hat in the direction of Nick Cave. Depending on where you stand, it’s either thrillingly atmospheric or deadly dull. Most likely the former. Ducker’s switch to menacing deep-throat vocals on this track easily forgive his few moments of clumsy phrasing.

Anthonisz and Ducker switch duties another time each on the final two tunes, neither of which tops anything before it, but do a decent job of mining the same territory and bringing the disc home.

If Mongrel Country weren’t so messily assured, they could be found guilty of dabbling in art-rock. The same smarts and self-awareness are there, thankfully devoid of the smug or shameful irony that usually comes as part of the package. What tips this album into credibility is that the songs sound as if they come from the inside out, rather than the reverse, which is the nature of most bands: just reflections of other acts, which are reflections of others, ad infinitum.

It’s doubtful that many other bands would look into the mirror and see the pig-dudes staring back at them.

Chalk this up as a grisly win for the five porcine Perth-ites.