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PharaohsThe Forest For The Trees Mixmasters/Shock It's fashion to play disco drumbeats. It's fashion to play choppy, syncopated guitars. It's fashion to sing in a pseudo-English accent, as though the Factory Records scene never ended. It's fashion to pretend it's still 1984, even though that was the year in which you were born. Yet Pharaohs aren't being specially processed by the hype mill just because they're in fashion; they're also bold, exciting, unique, and really, fantastically, bloody good. Take Keelhaul, their radio single, for example. It's the sort of song that almost immediately smacks you around the mouth and leaves you gasping for breath. Dan Crannitch's frantic falsetto chorus is enough to turn anyone around, let alone when matched with the two Joels (Crannitch and Amos) catchy-as-hell beat-shifting rhythm section. Or take Reds Under The Bed, combining the most up-front rhythm with the most imaginative guitar. Or Tiger Bites, the only slightly (and only slightly) down-tempo track on the record, with its infectious vocal line and inordinately well-placed 'oohs'. Or the minor-key magic riffery of Accent On Action, with the oh-so-cool way Dan prefaces the bridge by screaming the word 'Intermission!" And that's not to mention Sirens, a long-time live favourite of mine: it's the most unique and characteristic song on the record with a vocal line other bands would kill for. Sure, Pharaohs are in fashion. Get over it. Like almost (and I stress almost) any genre, there are going to be proponents of good and evil. Eighties-style disco punk has had more evil than most, but Pharaohs are a different story. May they be the exorcism the genre has been waiting for; I've certainly been won over.  |
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