Pharoah Overlord- Out of the Darkness (Full Contact/Svart Records SVR 065)

Like Circle, Pharoah Overlord are never predictable. The people who like the totally repetitive heavy stuff of the bands early recordings will find this one quite surprising as this is really like 80s heavy metal stuff and really rocking. This is collaboration between Finland and California, with long time collaborator, Bruce Duff (Jesters of Destiny) sings and plays additional guitar. Frank Meyer (Angus Khan) also sings two of the songs and finally, Sam Velde of Nighthorse sings two tracks. There are 9 tracks in total. The Eyes of Pharoah is a short acoustic track that leads into the heavy metal riffing title track with lead vocals by Sam. This is a cool total 80s metal style track. Next up is the 9½ min track, Devastator which features Frank on vocals and lead guitar. This will remind people of Judas Priest meets Accept but without the screams. A very fast track with a repetitive vocal that can almost drive you crazy if you don’t focus on the intense guitar soloing. Doomsday Mourning is another long, nearly 8 min track and features Bruce on vocal and lead guitar. It starts slower and doomy but then the main riff kicks in and you get surprised by the keyboard overlays. Cool.. And now to the Side B. This starts off with Transylvanian Afternoon. This is a really different track than you would think from the title, with a lot of moods and different feelings and the occasional heavy riff. We came to Rock and features Frank on vocals again and Bruce on lead guitar and is a real speed metal track and kicks some ass. No Speed Limit features Bruce and is a very uptempo track as the title would suggest. Unseen Eye features no guest, just Jussi, Tomi and Jussi ! It is a straight up heavy metal track and then suddenly these strange melodic keyboards come in to freak you out. The last track, I am the Light once again features Sam from Nighthorse on vocals and is a damn cool track. A pretty cool record with a slight psych edge on a few tracks but a lot of metal and not a lot of what you are used to from this band.

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