PRISTINA return with second album
Hopeless•Godless, the second full-length album by Pristina, is set for a February 26 release on The Path Less Traveled Records.
From Connecticut, Pristina grabbed the underground's ear in 2010 with the release of their debut full-length, The Drought (ov Salt and Sorrow), released on French label Trendkill. A review by Cosmo Lee in Decibel Magazine stated: "They are as if Today Is The Day were more overtly hardcore and metallic... The fluency and power on display is almost brazen. It's like beating a first-person shooter game using bare hands... For all its supposed edginess, heavy music rarely dares touch 'the long, dark night of the soul'. This record dives headfirst into it."
Revolver Magazine described the band's sound as "a chaotic surge of hardcore intimidation, atonal riff bombardment, and sound collage psych ops" and Exclaim! Magazine depicted it as "explosive, original, and downright gargantuan". Pristina backed up the critical praise by showing themselves to be one of the most powerful live bands in the Northeast scene, flattening crowds at Precious Metal in New York City and elswhere. And then as suddenly as they appeared, they went into hiding.
2013: Pristina re-emerge after a year off the grid, a year which vocalist/bassist Brendan K Duff calls "the darkest period of my life". Whatever demons Duff fought during this time, they have been immortalized in the form of a new album:Hopeless•Godless. Rhythmically punishing, soaked in absolute despair, Hopeless•Godless is an immersion in darkness. The closest musical reference points can be found in metallic hardcore greats like Bloodlet, Starkweather, and Converge, but Hopeless•Godless is such a personal account of pain, it is wholly its own thing. Says Duff: "Hopeless•Godless was a very difficult record to make, emotionally. The album is about the darkest period of my life. It is a very deliberate departure from our last album. The Drought (ov Salt and Sorrow) was fairly 'epic'. This one is raw and straight ahead."
Pristina consists of Duff, guitarist Mike Rabtoy, and drummer Mike Banfield. Hopeless•Godless was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Duff and Rabtoy at Stu Stu Studio in Meriden, CT. Comprised of six songs, clocking in at 35 minutes, the tracklist is as follows:
1) The Motherfucker
2) The Black Syph
3) The Immoralist
4) Darker (Omega)
5) Hopeless Godless
6) Malarial
The Path Less Traveled, home also to releases by Flourishing and Tiger Flowers, gives Hopeless•Godless a worldwide digital release on February 26. Limited CDs will be available directly from the band.
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