THIS AND THAT: PRISTINA, AETERNUS, ZETALAMBMARY, AND VEKTOR

Here are a few things I saw and heard this morning. I hope you enjoy them. And by “enjoy” I mean “whimper fearfully and moan miserably”.

PRISTINA

I was bowled over by this Connectuicut band’s 2010 debut album, The Drought (Ov Salt and Sorrow), and I wasn’t the only one. It has received plenty of attention and critical praise.  You can peruse my review of the album here, and check out a revealing interview of Pristina’s mainman Brendan Duff by using this link.

I have really been looking forward to Pristina’s second album, Hopeless•Godless, which is now scheduled for release on February 26 through The Path Less Traveled Records. I’ve made my way through it once . . . but needed time to recover and hear it again before attempting to make notes for a review. It’s just utterly crushing and searing. I felt like a raw steak that had been tenderized with a mallet and then char-broiled over a hot open flame.

This morning I saw that two tracks from the album — “The Immoralist” and “The Black Syph” — which previously premiered at Invisible Oranges and Revolver, have now appeared on Bandcamp. And because it seems unlikely that I’ll get my review finished before the release date, I at least want to throw these songs up here for you to check out. There will also be video of “The Immoralist” coming soon.

http://www.facebook.com/pristina666

AETERNUS

Despite the fact that this band from Bergen, Norway have been around since 1993 and released their first album in 1997, I only discovered them little more than a year ago and tried to make up for lost time with this lengthy feature. When I wrote that earlier piece, it appeared the band would be releasing a new album (their 7th) at some point in 2012. That didn’t happen . . . but now it’s about to.

The new work is entitled …And The Seventh His Soul Detesteth, and will first appear as a limited edition that includes the band’s 1995 debut EP Dark Sorcery. Dark Essence Records plans to release the album on March 18 world-wide (except for Norway, Germany, Austria and Sweden where the album will appear on March 22).

This morning I heard a track from the album named “Ruin and Resurrect”. The jolting, stomping introductory passage reminded me somewhat of Gojira, and then the song settled down into a bruising lurch before shifting gears into a kind of black-n-roll rhythm. But there are still more changes to come — lots of them. This is an interesting, complex song that packages some awfully nice riffs and I recommend you hear it for yourselves.

The new album is available for pre-order here:

http://karismarecords.bigcartel.com/product/aeternus-and-the-seventh-his-soul-detesteth-pre-order

http://www.facebook.com/Aeternusofficial

ZETALAMBMARY

Singapore-based Dane Prokofiev seems to have set his sights on writing for every metal blog and publication with more than five readers. As far as I can tell, he’s nearly there. His past pseudonyms have been numerous (even “Dane Prokofiev” is a pseudonym), but he seems to have settled for the moment on Happy Metal Guy. Long-time readers of NCS may know him as Rev. Will; under that name we published an extensive interview series and assorted other guest posts that he wrote.

But writing for an immense number of publications and metal sites has somehow not exhausted Happy Metal Guy’s energy, because he has also created his own web site under the banner Zetalambmary. I had a sneak peak at this new venture a couple of months ago, which is why you’ll see an over-long comment from me on the site’s first substantive post even though that post hadn’t yet become public.

But now the site has officially launched, and the launching is an auspicious one because it includes an interview of Xenoyr — the vocalist of Australia’s awesome Ne Obliviscaris — conducted in early 2012 before the release of Portal of I. It’s definitely worth reading . . . and Zetalambmary is definitely worth checking out. Go here:

http://www.zetalambmary.com/

VEKTOR

“Prog-thrash from space” is about as good a short-hand description of this Philly-based band’s music as I can come up with . . . and it has the advantage of being in Vektor’s own words. To wrap up this round-up, I’m going to embed a video of the band performing “Tetrastructural Minds” last night in Philadelphia. It was filmed by a long-time NCS reader who goes by the name Inquisitor when he comments here.

Turns out the instrumental execution of these guys is just as off-the-hook in the flesh as it is on recordings.

http://www.facebook.com/VektorOfficial