One second. As starts to reviews go, that’s a new one even for me. So, what does that “one second” mean? How long until I turned it off? Hell no. How long until I knew what was coming for the rest of the album? Well partly. How long until I had a smile on my face? Bingo! The fuzzy bass riff of album opener and title track ‘Vultures’ immediately had my aged gnashers on show, and it’s a good job I was home alone in my, erm, office rather than listening through headphones on public transport as it would have put the fear into other passengers. To back it up a little, I should point out that I am reviewing for your perusal the debut full length offering from German three piece Pariah Lord, an act I’d never heard of before, but hope to hear more of in the future.
Anyway, after the bass intro the guitar and drums join in for that rare beast, a stoner rock protest song, lyrics taking pot shots at any number of institutions of hypocrisy, be they political or journalistic, all wrapped up in a stomper of a tune that should have any crowd that is not in cryogenic suspension moving. The crawl of desert rock threads its way through follow up ‘Dead Man’s Hand’, the song drifting slowly past like the smoke rising from the end of a snake eyed gunslinger’s cheroot. And if the first two tracks aren’t enough to sell you on the album, next up is the centre piece, Pariah Lord hitting the road for eight minutes in their ‘Super Mega Ultra Van’, a vehicle that sounds as if it’s powered by CBD biofuel and driven by Dave Wyndorf.
Things take a bit of a weird turn with ‘This Is The Voice Of…’, a spoken piece where an alien emissary delivers a message to humanity over the top of a news broadcast. Well, I don’t know if it was my CD, or a problem with my system, but no matter how I tweaked assorted dials, both real and virtual, I could barely make out one word in five. What it did do though is segue into some more technical Tool like riffage care of ‘Vrillon’, its lyrical theme of “watching the skies” perhaps being act two, ‘Vrillon’ being the previously unnamed ‘Voice’. Indeed, after repeated listens I had built in my mind that the two tracks were Pariah Lord’s tribute to ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’, but that might just be in my head, rather than the intent of the songwriters.
‘Valley Of The Roses’ has the feel of a Syd era Pink Floyd number, a near discordant edge being mixed into the psychedelic, the heaviness and anger being a counter to any hippy trippy love-in that the pastoral title might have promised. The album is then closed out with ‘Halcyon Part 1 and 2’, the gentle instrumental idyll of part one building into the altogether heavier part two with looping, hypnotic riffs that wash over the listener like the crashing waves of the lyrics.
As only Pariah Lord’s second release, following on from their 2020 EP ‘Embrace The Misery’, the band display a considerable maturity in their writing and playing, demonstrating a cohesion and skill that normally comes with more time and experience. If this is what they are like on their first album, it shows not only considerable achievement, but also teases at how good what may lay in their future could be.
(8/10 Spenny)
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