South Wales’ Prosperina are set to release their second album ‘Harness - Minus’ through Maybe Records (Karma To Burn, The Toadies, Sucioperro) on November 3. Taking to the road over the ensuing months, Prosperina have further honed their craft supporting Monster Magnet, Mondo Generator and Orange Goblin to name a few, plus triumphant festival slots at Bloodstock and Desertfest. A recent acoustic tour saw the band support Nick Oliveri across the UK, with Motorhead’s Phil Campbell commenting “I can’t see how their electric set could be better – it was that good”.

Andy Howells recently put questions to the band.

For those who haven’t encountered Prosperina so far could you say who you are, what you play and where you come from?

We are 2 guys from Swansea and one guy from Port Talbot (soon to be 2 guys from Swansea, one guy from Port Talbot and one guy from London - you heard it here first) and we play hard-ish, progressive-ish rock music for want of a better description!

How did you all come together as a band?

That's a very long story - maybe even a saga. To round it down to a sentence, we all knew and admired each other (musically of course) from various bands and previous ties and decided to give it a go together. We got into a room and BAM: There's the rock magic!

How well was your first album Faith In Sleep recieved back in 2012?

Very well - it took us by surprise. When I started writing that album it was an exercise in exorcism: You know the usual demons that people get in their 20s? Well they had sort of gotten on top of me and that album represented a way to just try and shake them off whilst doing something creative. Then all of a sudden we got a load of great reviews and there was this buzz. I remember the first one coming in - our manager forwarded it to me via email and I just stared at it dumbstruck for ages thinking how cool it was that we'd actually got an amazing review from a magazine that I had always read. Then a bunch more came from other magazines and online blogs and they were all positive too so we were all pretty blown away

What has been your highlight as a band so far?

There are two that really stand out for me. Earlier this year we got to support the awesome American space rock band Monster Magnet at The Koko in Camden: That was awesome. We rolled up in our bandwagon expecting the usual treatment and there was a cloud of stage hands waiting right there to take all our gear. When we went on we were totally surprised to see that so many people had turned out for it. I guess The Koko is about a 2.5k capacity venue and there were a lot of people already in by the time we took the stage which we were surprised about. The second was playing Bloodstock festival: That was just a great day and night.

You are going to release your second album in November. Can you give us any background on how that has come together?

Sure - It's come together really well actually. It was done in two sessions at Mwnci studios in West Wales and then the post production/mixing was done at Mighty Atom studios by Myself, Jethro Chaplin and Joe Gibb. We have all worked together loads before and are great friends so it's always good to get in to the studio with them. We have a lot of fun together. We're really pleased with the results - it sounds huge and we can't wait for people to hear it.

Are there any particular tracks that you are looking forward to premiering?

Funnily enough we have a video for our first track from the record doing the rounds at the moment. It's called 'Cult Leader's Handbook'. It's exclusive via the Metal Hammer website right now but I'm pretty sure that by the time this article gets published it'll just be online on our youtube channel. Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYliNrK-9zQ

Will you be touring with the album and most importantly will some of your South Wales fans and supporters be able to see you live on home turf?

Yeah - we are hoping that when the album comes out we'll get some good tours/shows to promote it and we will definitely be playing in South Wales.

Where can we hear more of your music?

The first album is for sale via download stores and there are hard copies floating around too via music retailers. The new one will also be available on the 3rd of Nov. My advice is download the first album and check us out. If you like it then put a reminder in your calendar for the 2nd one on the 3rd of November . Our website is www.prosperina.co.uk by the way!