The Indian metal band Ec{c}entric Pendulum send all sorts of signals about the nature of their music before you hear a single note. Their name of course, which kindles images of a swinging thing that doesn’t swing like you expect it will, and the quirky typography they use in spelling it. And then there’s the title of their forthcoming second album — Perspectiva Invertalis — a Latin phrase which means “inverted perspective”.

And then there’s that cover art up above by Sam Ektoplasm, which is (to put it mildly) out of the ordinary for a metal band (or any band).

Undoubtedly some of you are aware of what Ec{c}entric Pendulum do with their music, because they do have a previous album (Winding the Optics) to their credit, and they’ve played at Wacken Open Air in Germany (the first band to represent India there), and shared stages in both Europe and India with the likes of Opeth, Textures, Meshuggah, Kreator, Orphaned Land, and recently Suffocation.

But it’s been more than a dozen years since that first album was released, and nearly seven years since their Tellurian Concepts EP, and so even if you’ve heard what they’ve done in the past, it’s best to now listen with fresh ears to what they’ve accomplished on this new album, which will be released tomorrow via Subcontinental Records. Continue reading »