Praise for Pharaoh Overlord‘s  Siluurikaudella from San Francisco’s aQuarius Records: Our favorite Finnish hypnorock band Circle, and related offshoots, are always both doing the expected, AND the unexpected. Expected, in that in almost all cases, Circle hew to the repetitive, rhythmic, krautrock-inspired “circular” grooves from whence they get their name.

Yet, while adhering to that basic concept, they’ve managed to put out umpteen dozen upon dozen albums that are all completely different… some spacey and pretty, some heavy and riffy, some with Gregorian style chant, some with operatic metallic vokills, and all brilliant (ask anybody, but especially us!).

Pharaoh Overlord, one of the more popular and prolific Circle “side projects”, with a lineup almost (exactly?) the same as Circle, has pretty much followed the same path. Originally, ostensibly a “stoner rock” version of Circle, they got even more truly metal with their last album, #4, maybe the ultimate “NWOFHM” statement from the Circle camp.

That said, this new, 5th album from Pharaoh Overlord is way more unexpected than the expected, content-wise!! Totally different from #4 for sure. There’s three long, instrumental tracks here, and each of them is quite different too. The disc begins with the 22:33 of ‘Vesitorni’, a seemingly improvised piece that’s extremely quiet, abstract, mysterious. Sudden skitter of the drums. Chiming glimmer of the guitars. Shimmering cymbals. Pulsation of the bass. It’s almost “onkyo” in its sparse, low-key, quasi-jazz loveliness. Really nice, and really not at all remotely “NWOFHM”.

Then, wham! Maybe we shouldn’t even warn you. Track two, ‘Valujuhla’ (12:47) erupts with a frenzy of loud, chaotic, freeform freaking-out. Here is where we wonder, is Siluurikaudella the record on which the PO/Circle guys go free jazz Seems like it. And it kinda makes sense. Up until now, they’ve been famed for their motorik, locked-in, precise clockwork rhythms. With this, it’s like those clockwork gears have come unsprung, gone completely haywire, and everyone’s playing everything all at once, anarchy reigns! It had to happen, something had to give. But, then this track too quiets down, and we can tell Pharaoh Overlord still have it under control.

Following that, the eighteen minute ‘Piirros’ takes over the final portion of the disc. It shares some similarities with the first track, staying mostly quiet and abstract. But it’s definitely got more of a propulsive groove-shuffle going on underneath. And rather than abstract jazz… it reminds us of an abstract, creaky, cavernous blues. Super moody and dark and weird. Probably our favorite of the three.

So, PO definitely surprised us with this one. Took a short while to get our heads around. But now we’re definitely digging it. And think that Circle, Doktor Kettu, Keiji Haino, Nels Cline, Tetuzi Akiyama, even Jandek fans will totally dig it too. Improvised, instrumental, eccentric! Oh yeah.

At 40 years old, Aquarius is the oldest independent record store in San Francisco. We try to only carry music we love, and we’re always searching for more new, cool, weird and wonderful music. All of which we then share with you, our loyal customers.