Though a band already with a wealth of compelling sounds and acclaim garnering releases behind them at the time, we were introduced to British dark rockers Pearl Handled Revolver three years back through their third studio album, If The Devil Cast His Net. It was an encounter which captivated ears and imagination in varying degrees across each track with all leaving a mark which inspired the real anticipation of its successor. Now the band has uncaged Fantasy Reigns, a fascination of sound and enterprise which firmly puts its predecessor in the shade.
The Bedford hailing quartet has brewed their enthralling blend of psychedelic rock, blues rock ‘n’ roll, and rhythmic animation with increasing invention and vision across every release. It is a potent reputation only further enlivened by a rousing live presence which has seen them share stages with the likes of The Black Crowes, The Blockheads, My Baby, Hawkwind, Focus, Uriah Heep, 10CC, Don Airey & Friends, and Stray over the years. With Fantasy Reigns though it feels like they have breached yet another fresh plateau of adventure and temptation, its eight tracks flourishing with richer flavours and creative dynamics to eagerly incite body and imagination alike.
Immediately Fantasy Reigns provided us with our favourite moment, In Your Blood a riveting, delicious incitement of a track which instantly had us wrapped in its lures as the sonic wires of guitarist Andy Paris encircle an opening sample. Within an instant the spirited rhythms of drummer Chris Thatcher infest appetite and limbs, their lure immersed in the equally enticing temptation of Simon Rinaldo’s keys. It is a tantalising persuasion only lifted again by the duskier tones of vocalist Lee Vernon and the eventful delivery it comes in. Drama soaks every note and syllable, creeping shadows courting the adventure of sound and storytelling with magnetic, almost predacious prowess.
The track is glorious, an instant pinnacle continuously worried with similarly potent enterprise across the release as proven by the following Machine Gun. Again real tenacity drives rhythms and melodic intimation, those darker hues as prevalent in the heated landscape of a song fuelled by emotive volatility. As dirt encrusts its inherent rock ‘n roll, guitars and organ cast a fiery tapestry of invention and again creative drama within before Belly of the Whale unfurls its epic tenebrific tale. Immersive to the point of claustrophobic within its thick atmospheric embrace, the song still leads limbs like a puppeteer on a funereal gaited dance as another major moment infests album and listener alike.
Its increasingly rousing dynamics and tempting lead to the calm coaxing of its successor, Something Going On Up There, where swarthy sonic sighs frequent the elegant embrace of keys. The emerging crepuscular serenade had little trouble seducing attention as again psych and blues hues lock together with fascination; the beguiling bass lures of Rinaldo bewitching before Siren lives up to its name drawing ears and appetite upon the rapacious rocks of its theatre and intensive darkness.
Petrol Skin equally captivated within its persuasive almost invasive sultry twilight while The Switch had us bouncing with its caliginous psych rock web cast in intoxicating guitar threads, each coated in the melodic humidity and suggestiveness of keys. With rhythms as magnetic and vulturine as vocals, the track was one more which simply and wholly seduced ears and passions and with greater force by the listen.
Fantasy Reigns concludes with Raise Your Hand, its voracious rock ‘n’ roll as virulent as it is tantalising but set with an instinctive indeed anthemic catchiness which had the body bouncing with lustful participation. In no time a fine end to the album is cast and a need to go again from the very start driving instincts.
Pearl Handled Revolver is no wallflower in impressing and exciting ears but with Fantasy Reigns they have boiled up a whole fresh cauldron of undiluted temptation for all psych/blues appetites to greedily feast upon.
Fantasy Reigns is out now across most stores.
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Pete RingMaster 11/07/2019
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
The highly rousing start is prolonged by the similarly anthemic Dance, a tenacious command on the body bound in the dark climes of surf/desert rock. Again the imposing yet contagious lure of Brett Harland Howell’s bass and Taylor Howell’s spirited beats manipulate song and listener, the Middle Eastern lures cast by Collin’s guitar quite irresistible in one of the album’s major peaks.
Celestial heights are ventured once more through Please Kill Me, its prowling flight a sizzling wind of psych fuzz and sinister rock ‘n’ roll. At times it merges gothic psychobilly reminding of The Orson Family and the scorched punk of The Scaners to its compelling body, all the while niggling away at the imagination before Earworm uncages its own feral swing. Echoing the grungy wildness of Escobar in its breath, the track is a cyclone of salacious garage rock as punked up as it is melodically caustic and more than living up to its moniker.
The EP took a mere breath to assault and stir ears and appetite through opener Bones, its initial riff struck bait the first thick lure in a voracious tide of punk ‘n’ roll. The effect tampered vocals only add to the already persuasive hell spawned temptation immersing track and listener, the threat and nag of rhythms escalating the insurgent swing and sonic infestation of the song’s slavery. Akin to a feral mix of The Scaners and The Hangmen in league with The Horrors and Misfits both in their formative years, the track effortlessly enslaved as too its successor which rises up from the sonic bridge between the two.
The album opens up with The Outcast Trail (See you Chris), a sullenly thoughtful ballad built on a web of melodic imagination and vocal emotion which roars like a funeral pyre in fiery crescendos. Unsurprisingly there are thick Soundgarden hues to the outstanding track, a tribute to Chris Cornell, with its sonic and emotive heat evocative and invasive, its enterprise seriously magnetic led by the inescapably compelling vocals.
The outstanding Party Shark Shake is next up, the song as the band’s actual name triggered by a book, no surprise here, about sharks by Susan Casey. You can almost feel the warm liquor soaked sand between the toes as the track stomps through ears, the swell of its melodic tides dragging the imagination and hips into the dangerous currents and depths below the biting dynamics of the song. Across the riveting attack, it builds up to rousing crescendos though at no moment is it anything less than an over powering incitement to body, spirit, and imagination. Imaging The Ghastly Ones and The Trashmen in collusion with The Damned and The Revillos and you get a whiff of the album’s greatest moment.
With no other hand but Hughes involved from writing and playing to recording and producing, the EP opens up with the truly irresistible Poorly Boy. The track rises up with drama and attractive tension in its tone, bringing its thick hues together to burst into an instantly rousing and infectious affair led by the potent voice of Hughes. Though under control, there is tempestuousness to the track which emerges in twists and an unpredictable enterprise that just gripped attention and a quickly forming appetite for the Hypnosister adventure. There is a touch of The Horrors to the song in certain moments too but merely one of the alluring hues in its individuality.