Album Review: Pharaoh - The Powers That Be

As the amount of music we have listened to continues to increase, the ability for any one song to stick in your memory goes down. For any one song to be memorable even after you haven't listened to it in years is even harder. Pharaoh, despite living in the hybrid mix of traditional and power metal, genres that are as stale as stale can be, have at least one of those songs. There are a couple of others that fit the bill, but as soon as I heard mention that this new album was on the way, I could hear "By the Night Sky" playing in my head. That song was my favorite on "The Longest Night" as soon as I heard it, and it has stood the test of time as one of the best songs of the style from the last twenty years. Yes, I said that.

The albums that have come since have all been good, but for whatever reason were missing that bit of a spark to put them over the top. Pharaoh is a good band, for sure, and the gap leading into this record gives us reason to hope that time has been spent making this the best album they possibly could. So is it?

The band bursts out of the gates with the title track, where the guitars weave textures of dissonant, angular riffs that sound as much progressive metal as anything. That is reinforced with the guitar solo, contributed by Voivod guitarist Daniel Mongrain. The influence of Voivod on the song's approach is undeniable, and quite out-of-step for most any band in Pharaoh's realm, but that's what makes it so interesting.

Tim Aymar's voice has always been gritty, and the years since we last heard him have added even more rough texture to his vocals. On "Will We Rise", where the music pulls back to give Tim and the chanted backing vocals more room, we can hear every nuance of strain he is putting into his performance. Credit for that goes to the production, which is phenomenally clear and punchy. A lot of bands with multiples of Pharaoh's budget can't make a record that sounds this dynamic. The clarity makes it even more jarring that Aymar can go from those piercing tones to a resonant baritone on "Waiting To Drown".

I love how on "Lost In The Waves" the song moves along through a nice melodic section that would leave it a solid song, only to have it explode the second time into an even bigger and hookier melody. That short segment amplifies the band's intentions, and raises the song up a notch or two. It's an embodiment of everything Pharaoh does well.

As a whole, the album is a solid balance between their aggressive galloping and their melodic interjections. This may be an odd comparison to make, but I hear this record as being a bit like taking a Slough Feg album and making it ten times more metal. There's a similarity in tone between the two that draws a connection in my mind. Pharaoh's take on that tone is the superior one, in this case, because they are far more focused on songcraft over just having a nifty riff.

Now comes the time to make that judgment I mentioned earlier. Is this the best Pharaoh album the band could make? Well, in all honesty I would say not quite, since I still think "The Longest Night" has a few more immediate hooks to it. That being said, I do think this is Pharaoh's best work since then, and might be the most Pharaoh of their records. They have interesting little twists and turns from song to song, and they make traditional metal sound far fresher than most any other band trying to do the same things as them. "The Powers That Be" is traditional metal at its best.