Much like the toxic sludge that all of humanity's waste eventually becomes, Finland’s Pharaoh Overlord have distilled thirty years of rock music into a slow, blistering, bubbling, psychedelic ooze. As the ooze slowly moves through your ears, familiar objects gradually reveal themselves, like a bastard aura hovering above the monotonous blobs of the group's repetitive dirges. While this contamination of the brain may make you a little uneasy at first, it makes a lot more sense once the chemicals begin to take hold. Soon, it’ll be the only place you’ve ever known.
#1, the band’s appropriately-titled debut, struts like post-rock’s bad-ass stepbrother, fucking and bleeding as it tramples their vibraphones and Nord Leads; I have to say that it feels good to live vicariously through the power of this music. There are only six songs here, but #1 clocks in at almost an hour; each song introduces a mean, beefy, ultra-distorted riff and then grinds in it for the next eight minutes or so. If a band tried to incorporate this kind of music into shorter songs with vocals, I would most likely hate it -- but in this case, the music's trancelike qualities add a tribal aspect that somehow makes it acceptable to my most excoriating taste (ahem). Luckily, the Overlords throw in just enough subtle-but-trippy overdubs and cool guitar solos to get your brain working as much as your gut already is.
I guess the only thing I could compare this to is the Kyuss album I heard in my friend’s car. Still, I’m not sure if Finland has any deserts in which to rock out. I’ve also read comparisons to a sister band called The Circle, but from what I’ve managed to find by them, I prefer Pharaoh Overlord's all-instrumental, totally raw, half improvised approach. I think the label on the cover of the album says it all: "Hypno-improv-stoner-rock from Finland," followed by "(File under psychedelia)". Let’s not kid ourselves -- much of #1 is minimalist wank-mania sludge -- but hell, waste has to go somewhere. In this case, it might smell bad, but for some strange reason it feels right.
|
