Pharaoh Overlord - 7 Pharaoh Overlord

Defying convention and expectations once again, Pharaoh Overlord’s 7 rides in auspicious, possessed of the gleaming high octane euphoria that transforms a dreary everyday into a triumph-over-adversity movie montage, swaggering in with high-saturation synth-rock, dressed in a custom satin bomber jacket for euphoric big-screen moments that never existed, salvation narrated by the death growl of Aaron Turner and guest falsetto from Richard Dawson. Ever a band as anti-brand, this is of course, not their seventh album. 7 has been five years in the making – a far longer gestation than most other albums could afford. It is their Aja on a collapsed timeline, coming to fruition two decades after the band’s inauguration, with a bigger, bolder sound than ever before, taking inspiration from A.G. Cook and Charli XCX. They have brought in big guns on the buttons for the first time, with notable Finnish experimental black metal band Oranssi Pazuzu’s Juho Vanhanen on production, and Niko Lehdontie mixing. Together they have polished the chrome of this synth-driven death-metal hyperrock into a high-gloss mirror-shine, to “something like Justice’s debut album with the raw and disturbing atmospheres of Scott Walker’s Driftera sound”, says Vanhanen. This sound is augmented by the seismic contributions of vocalists from their all-star extended universe of friends and collaborators. Once again, they are joined by the peerless death metal growl of the man most likely to call himself their third member, Aaron Turner (Sumac/Isis/Old Man Gloom) and if you never thought 80s electronic rock needed death growl, think again. He is joined on anthemic electronic pop hit for the ages, ‘Arms of None’, by 21st century folk oracle and peerless earworm writer, Richard Dawson. Dawson has been collaborating as an official member of Circle since their album Henki, and here steps in with full-voiced falsetto, transcendent and glorious part Michael McDonald, part Judas Priest, although he describes it differently: “I wanted to offer a counterpoint to Aaron’s incredible vocal,” he says, “the most contrasting flavour I could do was my version of Buck’s Fizz”. The number 7 is a cross-cultural signifier of good luck and divine completion, and if this promises much, 7 delivers, as Jussi Lehtisalo and Tomi Leppänen’s self-proclaimed “dream album”. “This is, finally, the real Pharaoh Overlord,” promises Jussi, “I can generate demos easily, but working with a producer, it’s reached a destination we really wanted.”