Phased - A Sort Of Spastic Phlegm Induced By Leaden Fumes Of Pleasure

Here’s another (bong) hit from the Elektrohasch label of Germany. Phased is the band and their new (and fourth) album comes with the unwieldy title of A Sort Of Spastic Phlegm Induced By Leaden Fumes Of Pleasure. They call their brand of noise “psychedelic deathrock” and it’s an accurate catchphrase. Phased play loud space rock but without any hippy cosmic peace n love stuff. When you’re floating in space you’re gonna get sick to your stomach and your eardrums will explode. Save yourself a ton of money and get this album rather than sign up for a trip to Uranus with Lance Bass on the next NASA express.

These 3 bald muthers (2 Swiss, 1 Finn) have spent a lot of time listening to Hawkwind, Black Sabbath, Can, early Pink Floyd, Chrome, Sleep, Electric Wizard and the first Stooges album. They’ve also spent a lot of lonely nights playing at ear splitting volume in their practice space coming up with eternal space boogie riffs that recall all their favorite albums but also bear their own personality. They’ve been together since 1997 so they know what they’re doing.

The 8 songs on this album were recorded and mixed in 9 days, which is pretty impressive given how complex some of the arrangements are. The root sound is basic power trio but with lots of extra noise layered on top to keep things interesting. Chris Sigdell handles guitar and vocals. His guitar playing brings to mind Dave Brock, Helios Creed and Ron Asheton at different times. Vocally, he bleats out the words like a cross between Nik Turner and Jus Osborne of Electric Wizard. Chris Walt has a fat, distorted Geezer Butler meets Lemmy tone that blends well with the guitar. Drummer Marko Lehtinen pounds hard and furious and gets bonus points for having an enormous Elvis Presley collection. DJ Fontana rules! Scott “Dr. Space” Heller guests on about half the album on synthesizer.

“A Surreal Deal” opens the album sounding like something that Sleep would have come up with if they had a chance to write songs with Nik Turner when they toured with him back in 1994. Heavy as hell but with excellent groove and only 3 and a half minutes. Even though the songs aren’t mixed into each other, the entire album flows nicely. Tempos are generally mid-tempo but occasionally speed up like on “The Osteopath” or slow down like on “I Come Toulouse.” Album closer “The Need” is the only super slow dirgey one and is only 2 and a half minutes. Most of the songs are a tidy 4 or 5 minutes but the long ones never get dull. “Maelstrom” is a 9 minute Sabbath-Wind crusher and “Nachspiel Revisited I & II” is the longest at 11 minutes and sounds like Electric Wizard taking on The Stooges’ “Little Doll.

Special mention must be made of the excellent lyrics on this record. Too often space/stoner/doom/whaterver bands take themselves too seriously or write throwaway lyrics and bury the vocals. Phased actually incorporate some humor in their words and they’re up front in the mix so everyone can enjoy them. Who wouldn’t want to sing along with “Tip Of The Sky” – “I smoke barrels of Hash in a starch wooden pipe, Lord I’m filling my lungs just to reach for the height.” They also don’t mind a little tokin n stroking on “Maelstrom” where the protagonist claims he “fell into a lesbian scene dream…a spellbinding hex of lovers of the same sex.” Nastay! Somewhere Elvis is smiling.

 --Woody
http://www.phased.ch/

Phased myspace

http://www.myspace.com/phasedphased