20 years after the band’s last proper album Alter (Sub Pop) was released — with the catalog number Sub Pop #666, no less — Pleasure Forever returns this month with a new mini-album titled Distal. It’s as hard to characterize as they’ve always been. The band has just released its second single, “To The Last Recorded Syllable of Time”.

Moments of heavy-hitting rock tendencies tie together their continuing exploration of spooky 60s psychedelia and their peculiarly warped feel of classic rock from an alternate universe, dashed with hypnotic and minimal rhythms reminiscent of heady Krautrock. Distal will appeal to fans of Roxy Music, The Doors, The VSS, CAN, Amon Düül II, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds…

Following the surprising and untimely deaths of old friends, tour mates and family in recent years, the members of Pleasure Forever, vocalist/keyboardist Andrew Rothbard, drummer Dave Clifford and guitarist Joshua Hughes reconnected to catch up. They soon began discussing trading home-recorded ideas, which led to a frenzy of file trading. A batch of new songs was rather quickly built and the members self-recorded and mixed 7 tracks of material that became Distal. 

In the two decades between proper albums, Rothbard has released multiple solo albums under his full name Andrew Douglas Rothbard, Clifford played drums in instrumentalal post-metal band Red Sparowes, as well as Emma Ruth Rundle vehicle Marriages, Jail Weddings and more, Hughes sang and played guitar in Relapse Records sludge metal trio Rabbits. The three members formerly played together in synth-punk pioneers The VSS in the mid-90s. Pleasure Forever released a collection of B-sides and cover songs Bodies Need Rest in 2007.