NEW VIDEOS FROM WILDERNESSKING, PRAY FOR LOCUST, AND MOTH

We were a bit light on content yesterday, but we’ll be making up for that today — and this post wasn’t even part of the planned line-up. In one of those happy confluences of events, the morning brought three new videos that I’m really digging. Two of them are from young bands who’ve already become favorites, and the third is a bright new discovery: Wildernessking (South Africa), Pray For Locust (Sweden), and Moth (U.S.).

WILDERNESSKING

I suppose there might be a few things I haven’t yet done to promote this band’s music. I haven’t tried sky-writing or a flashing billboard in Times Square. I suppose I could put their faces on milk cartons, except they’re far from lost. To the contrary, in a relatively short time they’ve turned out some amazingly mature, completely enthralling music. First came their 2012 debut album, The Writing of Gods In the Sand (featuring the killer album art you see above by Reuben Sawyer). To steal words from my review, it lashed together styles from a variety of genres (including black metal, post-metal, and Enslaved-style prog) to create “a uniquely effective expression of power and emotion, a blending of light and dark, soft and hard, beauty and voraciousness.”

Then came a follow-on EP, …And the Night Swept Us Away (reviewed here), which I perceived as one long, panoramic song divided into three parts, not because it was written that way but because it worked that way as a musical journey.

Today the band provided me with yet another excuse to pimp them by releasing an official music video for “Rubicon”, one of the tracks from the album, which marks a turning point in the conceptual journey that the album portrays. It’s a live performance (interspersed with related clips) filmed at their record release show at the Kimberly Hotel on April 20. Have a look and a listen right after the jump . . . after which I’ve got some more news about the band’s activities.
 

 

Both of Wildernessking’s releases are available for streaming and purchase on Bandcamp (here), and you can keep up with what they’re up to on their Facebook page. Among other things, they’re working on a split release with the most excellent Young and In the Way from NC and are making progress on completion of their second album — which we understand may surface before the year is out.

Also, if you read our album review, you may recall that Antithetic Records had launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund production of the debut album on 2LP vinyl. I’m happy to report that’s done, and the vinyl is now available for order here (limited quantities, of course).

PRAY FOR LOCUST

I first found about about this Stockholm band early in the year when I viewed their excellent video for a song from their last album SWARM, and then a month later I reviewed their commendable new EP (Into the Ocean), which the band allowed us to offer readers as a free download. To quote myself, which I always enjoy doing: “The music is part thrash, part hardcore, part groove metal. I imagined it as a gene-splicing of Lamb of God, DevilDriver, and Shadows Fall, with a few building blocks of latter-day Soilwork thrown into the chromosomes.”

Their new video is for the EP’s title track. The song is still an out-and-out groove weapon, a mosh trigger pulled all the way back. And for the video, it appears the band took the song’s title as an invitation to get very wet. As in the case of their previous video, it also includes very cool use of light and shadow. Also, there is blood. Watch:
 

 

PTL’s Facebook page is at this location. AND you can freely download the band’s ass-kicking EP at this location.

MOTH

This Denver-based band is one who NCS kvrmudgevn KevinP has been pushing me to check out for weeks. By waiting (for no good reason) I was able to discover the music through a just-released video for a song called “Waste”. The song is one that Moth have recorded for an album to be entitled Endlessly In Motion, which I hope will appear soon, because “Waste” is really good.

The music is a high-octane burst of technically demanding melodic death metal with deftly placed keyboard atmospherics, skin-stripping vocals, and a virally infectious melody. In an effort to capture the electrifying quality of song, the video strobes in a way that could throw epileptics into seizures, so be forewarned. Looking forward to more Moth . . .
 

 

Check out Moth on Facebook via this link. Their official web site is here.