Phased


Medications (CD) 2007 Electrohasch
I think that the maniacs in the multinational group Phased get off on playing with your expectations. Why else recall the grandeur of John Coltrane's 'Meditations' with their album title, not to mention randomly yelling "A Love Supreme" towards the end of the doomy first song, 'Worship the Sun'. So you might be forgiven for at first thinking that this is a righteous slab of chanting transcendental jazzy enlightenment, when in fact what we've got here is a hammering slab of psychedelic deathrock. That's their phrase, and it's a pretty damned good one if what they mean is heavy spacerock combined with old school Sabbathy doom. The empty blackness of space meets the cold bleakness of doom, as it were.
The crashing power chords of the above-referenced title track make it the doomiest on the album, and a fine track it is. 'Reminder' gets back into the spacey territory in which Phased like to luxuriate, but as usual, with a twist. Instead of the usual homage to 'Space Ritual' or 'DoReMi,' the group instead invokes Nik Turner at his rockin' best in his 80s project, Inner City Unit. 'Frozen Buds' is reminiscent of the Hawkwind of the 90s, with plenty of Ron Tree-esque weirdness, as does 'Solitary Animal.' 'Sausage Tricks' is just good ole' mind games strangeness, while 'Back in Time' is hard-driving trippiness with a more contemporary sound.

If you dug the edgy sexual space rock of the group's first effort, 'Music for Gentlemen', you'll need this, their paean to the enjoyment of illicit substances. The songwriting and playing are just as good, if not better. The vocals, however, are even more dramatic, with loads of trilled rrrrrssss and such. In fact they're almost cartoonish at times, raising the dreaded specter of irony rather than the loving enthusiasm of sincerity. I know the Elektrohasch label to favor nothing but the finest in hard psychedelia, so I'll assume an honorable intent on their part. With that in mind, I can only recommend this is a keeper for those who love their heavy space with a dollop of doom.
Album Cover

1. Worship the Sun
2. Nihil Slayride
3. Reminder
4. Frozen Buds
5. The marsh Chapel Experiment
6. Sausage Tricks
7. Traces
8. Back in Time
9. Solitary Animal
10. Nude Interlude from Hell

Approx. 47 minutes

Reviewed by: Kevin McHugh