[photos by Edward Rollin]
Nefarious Industries this week releases Bestial, the latest album from long-running New York City-based math/prog/experimental outfit PAK, its current lineup containing members of The Molecules, Cleric, Imperial Triumphant, and more. The diverse and damaging album is now available on CD and all digital platforms, streaming in its entirety.
For more than fifteen years of touring and recording, PAK has released six recordings on labels including Ra Sounds, Magaibutsu Japan, Tzadik, and others. Combining powerful avant metal, the complexity of prog rock, and inspired moments of improvisation, PAK‘s music stands unique. Founder Ron Anderson is back on guitar with a more powerful heavier sound, while new recruits, bassist Steve Blanco (Imperial Triumphant) and drummer Larry Kwartowitz (Cleric) are helping in stretching the band’s previous boundaries, pushing PAK to new sonic directions.
PAK‘s newest album Bestial is a surreal and cerebral experience. Feeling simultaneously both free-form and focused, familiar but unaccustomed, border-free but not without direction, the album flows through white-knuckled rhythm whiplash, otherworldly tones, tranquil plains of organic rock, and straight-up slamming, jarring jams. Seven expansive, explosive songs harness more than fifty-two minutes of immersive metallic, experimental rock, much of which remains primarily instrumental.
Produced by Ron Anderson, Bestial was recorded in two days in September 2018, captured at Menegroth, The Thousand Caves, in Queens, New York City with Colin Marston. The album was mixed and mastered by Anderson and completed with artwork by Will Argunas and layout by Greg Meisenberg. PAK is definitely back, and Bestial is a must-hear for fans of John Zorn, Dysrhythmia, Melvins, Mörglbl, Stinking Lizaveta, Gore, and other noncompliant and exploratory acts.
Bestial is now available on all digital platforms, and in a four-panel eco-wallet CD alongside merch and bundle options RIGHT HERE.
Watch for new PAK live performances and tour dates across North America and Japan to be announced later in the year.
Bestial Track Listing:
1. Attrition
2. Repent Recoil
3. Prophesies Of The Sybil
4. Chiaroscuro
5. Sub Specie Aeternitatis
6. Reflection Consumer
7. Triskaidekaphobia
PAK:
Steve Blanco – bass, synthesizer, voice
Larry Kwartowitz – drums
Ron Anderson – guitar, voice
https://www.facebook.com/PAK.RonAnderson
http://www.ronanderson-molecules.com
https://ronanderson.bandcamp.com
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