Pharaoh
The Longest Night
10 - 53:06
Cruz Del Sur Music
(review by Dave Burns, written March 2006)
(this is one of three reviews of this album published simulataneously on this website. See the others here and here)
Heavy metal in the United States is never a straightforward affair of transferring ideas into audio. The obstacles bands who decide to compose and release traditionally-minded metal face are many and produces a situation where albums are tests of endurance that can only be completed with a great deal of effort and persistence. One of the factors that create byways littered with roadblocks and speedbumps is that metalheads in America resemble a lost tribe whose scattered remnants have established tenuous links to keep the past alive in order to preserve the future of the heavy metal. In this precarious climate, simple matters such as playing live shows, rehearsing new material, and laying down tracks become complicated events that require a level of planning and coordination that mirrors the complexity of an extended guerrilla operation.
And Pharaoh has certainly conducted a long and arduous march to reach the current metallic plateau they now occupy. Tim Aymar (vocals), Chris Kerns (bass) and Matt Johnsen (guitars) all live in different areas of Pennsylvania while Chris Black (drums) resides in Illinois, and the physical distance between the four has had a decisive effect on the evolution of the band. The creation of After the Fire, the debut album, was a slow and halting process of recording that took place before a meeting between all the members had occurred. These spatial and temporal hindrances, however, were not the only hurdles Pharaoh had to clear before Fire was released years after work on the album had begun. Icarus, the record company originally slated to release the band's debut, was located in Argentina and the economic collapse that engendered widespread chaos throughout the country left Pharaoh in label limbo. Eventually, Icarus split into two separate entities, and Pharaoh's deal made its way across the Atlantic when Fire became the first album released on Cruz del Sur, the Italian label staffed by refugees who had fled the destabilizing meltdown in Argentina.
To a certain extent, After the Fire was an aural document that captured the turmoil and constraints surrounding the first few years of Pharaoh's existence. The album shone with a radiant brilliance that rippled throughout the songs, but the end result was an uneven work which moved in fits and starts at times. There were complete and fully-realized metal movements, such as the rousing concluding number "Slaves" that pounded down iron nails with swift and sure hammer strikes as fluttering leads and ratcheting riffs rip-sawed the air and the stratospheric, singed wing-tips speed of "Solar Flight," a song that surged and dived with a deceptive simplicity, but there were also many muddled moments which made the album less than magnificent. Some were minor, the vocals in "Forever Free" that oscillated too abruptly and were pensive when a more forceful delivery could have imparted a hearty heft to certain portions or the timid, tentative drumming that sounds muffled and out of sorts during "After the Fire," while others loomed larger, the purposeful and potent marching stride of "Heart of the Enemy" marred by an energy-sapping, superfluous acoustic ending and the squandered potential of "Never, Not Again," a song which contained the hints of an epic journey that was cut short by an avoidance of lofty and scenic heights in favor of a more direct route. These faults and flaws were not fatal and After the Fire was a solid opus that left many of Pharaoh's peers sifting through the ashes the band left in its wake, but the lack of a comprehensive character made the album a sporadic and spotty sum of its parts which could be ascribed to the absence of a congealing process that formed the separate members into a unified band.
Although geography still makes Pharaoh a far-flung group which has yet to play live, the shifting sands of the Great American Metal Desert have not swallowed them up, and the distant caravan routes have become considerably closer in the years following After the Fire--a development that is apparent on The Longest Night. For the new album builds on the previous one to fashion a seamless work transcending and surpassing Fire while retaining the combination of earthy grit and ethereal grace that made it a scattershot collection of songs worth noting as an incredibly promising debut. Pharaoh's melding of these two strains of heavy metal forms an enveloping atmosphere that is as vast and deep as a crisp, clear night sky, leaving anyone attempting to summarize the basic grandeur on display in words at a loss to succinctly describe a song--let alone the entire album. However, despite the difficulty of separating the sounds of Night from one another, there are streams that can be abstracted and channeled into controllable currents which reveal directions and destinations.
At times, rampaging and immediate rapids are navigated in songs such as "I am the Hammer," which motors ahead at a quick coal-eating clip driven by a voracious, chugging engine that sends leads and solos ricocheting as it blasts through tight, landslide-ridden passes choked with granite debris, and "Fighting," a slashing switchblade of a song recalling the era of the early eighties when street-ready rock 'n' roll and industrial-strength heavy metal collided in out-of-the-way alleys. The denser elements of heavy metal are also well represented on Night in intricate and sprawling compositions. "By the Night Sky," for example, the album's epic and brightest constellation, opens and closes with a mournfully muted air that touches the soul as it effortlessly wraps around a loping gait which treads in the faint footsteps of the highland-inflected glories of past ages and in between are numerous metal-flaked gems--a firmament-raising chorus, a shooting, soloing and streaking middle passage and a clenched-fist-in-the-air break. But this binary division is somewhat of an arbitrary construct, since the songs do not fit into any neat and tidy categories because a hairsbreadth-away-from-a-flash-rocking section appears in "In the Violet Fire," a sweeping and stirring subtle ambiance permeates "Fighting," and "Never Run," the instrumental that serves as the ideal coda for the album, is built around a time-honored backbone ripped from "Back in the Village" that is fused with progressive, slalom-running riffs which manage to be both mechanic and organic.
This curious combination of instrumental precision and limber musicianship also suffuses every note played on The Longest Night and is the natural outgrowth of a group of talented individuals becoming a band with a collective consciousness. But the members of Pharaoh shine in their respective roles and the particular expertise of each one is impressive. That Tim Aymar is one of the best singers currently active would meet with little disagreement among metalheads, and Aymar's prowess on Night will only increase the amount of prestige attached to his name. In fact, wondrous feats like perfectly splitting the difference between a set of languorous lungs and vitriolic chords on "Sunrise" as well as the pointed and stately attack executed in "Fighting" that echoes a lean and hungry Ronnie James Dio should earn Aymar a place in the same class as the majestic vocal master. Chris Black more than atones for the episodic lapses on After the Fire by providing forceful and focused percussive ballast that ranges from the mellow and smooth glasspack rumbling underpinning "Like a Ghost" to the full-deck-of-playing-cards-in-the-spokes-of-a-bicycle-careening-down-a-mountain-road drumming on "I am the Hammer." Chris Kerns also wields his bottom-ended instrument with a confidence and skill that is hard to miss, providing flourishes on occasion and a steady and prominent foundation for the duration while Matt Johnsen deftly traverses the musical terrain, ripping out a cornucopia of leads, solos, and riffs that dazzle and amaze.
Although singular instances of the members of Pharaoh turning in an astounding performance could be extended indefinitely, each effort accentuates the labor of the others and transforms The Longest Night into a staggering and superior slab of heavy metal that will be musically relevant for decades to come. Another facet of Pharaoh that indicates Night is a significant release as well as supplying evidence of a band operating in concert is the white-hot metal and cerebral spirit animating the songs. Whether it is a defiant attempt to spurn the bright rays of the sun, an uncompromising statement of intent issued on a timeless battlefield or a wounded and cornered heart pounding out a beat letting all and sundry know that it will not succumb to an emotional onslaught, the lyrical content flows in the grains of conviction and determination with a teeth-grinding tenacity. In Pharaoh's universe, fighting is the very breath of life and while the outcome of the struggle is uncertain, one thing is beyond a doubt, the war will not be waged with hollow and plastic mock swords, only a strong and steely resolve--a metallic attribute which has allowed Pharaoh to persevere and makes The Longest Night one of the purest examples of heavy metal in action released this or any other year.