AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): PRAETORIAN — “PYLON CULT”

(written by Islander)

At the end of this month APF Records will release Pylon Cult, the debut album by Praetorian from Hertfordshire in the UK. The label describes the album this way:

A new lesson in vile, disgusting and gruesome blackened sludge metal, mixed in a volatile cocktail of death metal, thrash and hardcore. Praetorian are here to take you on a wild ride with an album that fluctuates between hi-octane energy, colossal doomy riffs, a savage dual-vocal attack and insane tempo changes, all culminating in a violent, nightmarish thrill ride.

That provides a faithful description of the brutalizing but mind-bending sonic nihilism provided by Pylon Cult — a title that comes from contemporary British author David Southwell’s imagined county Hookland, in which a so-called cult begin to worship pylons in order to harness their energy.

But we have our own thoughts to share about this ruthless but consistently fascinating album — in addition to the main attraction, which is our premiere of a full album stream today.

Praetorian chose “Fear & Loathing In Stevenage” as their album opener. The APF press materials for the album preview it in these words:

A wave of ear piercing guitar feedback drenches the listener on opening track and leading single “Fear & Loathing In Stevenage“, beginning a journey into sadistic sludge savagery. A tongue-in-cheek homage to the quartet’s Hertfordshire hometown, Praetorian set a high precedent from the start, bringing together blistering speed and ferocity that suddenly implodes into acid tongued doom riffs that stomp and crush the earth.

True enough, the song does all those things. After sizzling and searing the listener’s brain with  feedback, the music launches a frantic clobbering and clawing session. The drums go off like hammer blows inside your skull; the high-toned guitars sound like a boiling stew of acid and grit; and the very heavy low end grimly moans and slowly heaves and writhes, in contrast to the blowtorch intensity of blood-spraying screams.

The lead guitar dismally squirms and wails, and without warning, Praetorian downshift the tempo and deep-six the vocals into gruesome gutturals. They bring back the feedback and then the music lurches like some colossal dying beast. The bass abysmally moans; the caustic riffing shivers like a Geiger counter in the presence of a plutonium core; the vocals remain… insane.

After such a thoroughly brutalizing and disconcerting experience, it may come as a shock to hear the gentle ringing notes that sorrowfully open the next track, “Chain of Dead Command,” but soon enough the song begins cracking the listener’s neck and worming its way forward like a massive serpent.

Fronted by screams and growls galore, the riffing grimly worms and warps but also shivers in a drilling, tremolo’d fever. When the drums shift into a kind of tribal tumble, the guitars mysteriously glitter and quiver, and a singing voice soars, providing a haunting diversion from the sonic devastation — which eventually resumes in a harmony of harrowing horror, a gouging, clawing, and shrieking calamity that seems to intertwine cruelty and pain.

From just those two songs it becomes plain as day that Praetorian are full of surprises, and so are the rest of the songs. For music that’s so caustic and crushing, and so generally furious and tormented, the songs are elaborate. While the moods are perpetually pitch-black in different ways, they’re translated through a changing variety of speeds, tones, riffs, and percussive patterns. Sometimes the music is primitive and pernicious, sometimes unhinged and sometimes suffocated.

Photo Credit: Nick Wilkinson

Wisely, Praetorian occasionally resort to the kind of beguiling (but melancholy) instrumental softness that marked the beginning of “Chain of Dead Command,” and a bit of electronic weirdness in “Dormant Psychosis,” thereby providing a kind of relief from all the turbulence and torment, and from the scarring mutilation inflicted by all the filth-encrusted, megaton-heavy riffage. The sky-high singing occasionally returns too, and it’s always gripping, though it also sounds like torment of a different shade.

Other recurring contrasts again juxtapose brute-force grooves (the kind you can imagine fracturing pavement or your own spine) and the kind of engorged slithering movements that conjures visions of just-fed pythons encrusted with gore. “Remnants of Head,” in particular, provides a Grade A example of that — along with a woozy and bluesy interlude with spoken words.

And if you’re looking for a blast-driven episode of rampant violence, pay attention to the album closer, the humorously titled “Burly Haemorrhoid” — though it includes contrasts of its own, including threads of truly heartaching melody.

Yes, Pylon Cult is grim and grievous, massive and mauling, but it’s also full of twists and turns (many of them quite groovesome) that make the music interesting in addition to ruinous in different ways. It will keep you off-balance, and that’s one reason why it’s easy to stay stuck with it all the way through.

 

 

PRAETORIAN is:
Tom Clements – Vocals
Mark Wilkie – Guitar
Richard Stevenson – Bass and backing vocals
Andrew Bisgrove – Drums

Pylon Cult was produced, engineered, mixed and mastered by Wayne Adams (Petbrick, Big Lad, Wasted Death) at London’s Bear Bites Horse Studio (home to Green Lung, TORPOR, Vacuous, Shooting Daggers and many more), and it features cover art by Mark Wilkie.

Pylon Cult will be released by APF on January 31st, on CD, Cassette and Digital formats, and they recommend it for fans of: Iron Monkey, Acid Bath, Kylesa, Wallowing, and Mastiff. It’s available to order now.

PRE-ORDER:
https://www.apfrecords.co.uk/albums/pylon-cult
https://praetorianuk.bandcamp.com/album/pylon-cult

PRAETORIAN:
https://linktr.ee/praetorianmetal
https://praetorianuk.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/praetoriankvlt
https://www.instagram.com/praetoriankvlt