PRAETORIAN

Answered together by Tom Clements (Vocals) and Mark Wilkie (Guitar)

Q1. For readers who might not be familiar with you, would you please provide some background on yourself—where you’re from, when you formed, etc.?

We’re from the county of Hertfordshire near London and we formed back in 2015. Mark our guitarist is the founding member and only original member of the band, while the rest of the current line-up was fleshed out just before COVID. The first few years of the band were a little undisciplined and disjointed, and we suffered through a few personnel changes which halted our progress, but since the beginning of the 2020s it has been pretty good going.

Q2. How would you describe your sound? Who are some of your primary influences?

We started off as a sort of heavy Entombed style death metal band – no-nonsense, groovy with some sludgy moments. That quickly segued into a more palatable mix of heavy bottom end sludge a la Iron Monkey, EyeHateGod, combined with the faster paced elements of hardcore and death metal, topped with more melodic and psychedelic elements of post-metal. We like to keep it heavy and extreme, but at the same time taking our foot off the gas and adding something you can hum to. Well…we hope! Band influences include the aforementioned Iron Monkey and EyeHateGod, along with Acid Bath, Grief, Isis, Kylesa, Darkthrone, Conan and Hum.

Q3. After three EPs, you’re now moving into full-length territory with Pylon Cult. What’s been different about that process from a writing and recording process, if anything, and was there a rationale behind going for the longer-form release this time around?

The first few EPs were just a mish-mash of new songs and little experimentation. It was just a result of the way we were playing together at the time. Truth be told, we were thinking of starting on an album around COVID but after that blew over, we just decided to do a third EP instead. For Pylon Cult, we made it clear that we wanted to branch out stylistically in different ways. Not just to write a bog standard sludge metal album, which would have been the easy thing to do. We wanted to include the usual heavy stuff, coupled with melodic parts and thunderous doom sections. We like it fast and slow, light and heavy. A mix of all, but without compromising on the flow. It could have been easy for the album to be disconnected and messy, but the reviews so far have been very positive, complimenting how well the tracklist is structured.

Q4. Has there been any kind of major sonic shift, in your view, from your earlier material to now? If so, how is that reflected on the record?

The early stuff was a bit more linear and straight forward, with reliance on just being heavy. For instance, some of the previous members from years back hated playing doom, so we had no slower material. Some melody was seeping through but there was no real progression. I still think some of the earlier stuff sounds great, but suffered from either poor production or sloppiness. The newer material is a lot more varied and it makes writing a lot easier, as there are less constraints. The songs are also a lot longer, something we did not aim for purposely. That just came by accident! Two of the tracks are the longest we’ve ever written.

Q5. What sorts of subjects and themes do you explore on Pylon Cult?

Nihilism is probably the main theme of the album. Nihilism caused by the state of things as they are at the moment. But then also trying to find some kind of meaning through it. Even if it’s through a lot of extremity. The subjects are very subjective [Laughs]! The song ‘Pylon Cult’ is a reference to Hookland and the worship of pylons in the fictional county. The rest of the songs lyrics came about through stream of consciousness automatic writing. Their own meanings will evolve over time, and will have different meanings for everyone.

Q6. Have you been/will you be touring around the release of and/or in support of the record?

We have no tours lined up, and unfortunately we have not managed to get ourselves an album launch show. We will continue to gig around the UK as we have been doing the past few years, and hopefully this year build on the progress by getting on some great festival slots and supporting some of the bigger bands. Hopefully bands who we call our major influences as well! We have some gigs confirmed in the book for this year and we will announce them in due course.

Q7. Are there any other future plans for the band currently on the horizon? 

There are no long term plans as life has a habit of throwing curveballs at every turn, but in terms of material, we look to start work on new songs very soon. It’s very likely that there will be a second album coming around next, and we hope that it will expand more on our sound. More heavy, more experimentation and more weirdness. I mean, we won’t be turning into The Locust or anything, but we would definitely like to add more outside elements, like noise effects and synths along with the usual riffs. We hope to keep bagging more shows, spreading the word and building relationships along the way. Just more of the same!