Playing a burst of this to a sound engineer friend of mine, he immediately seized upon the fact that the production sounded like it had escaped straight out of the 70’. Indeed it does and was recorded on 8 track analogue equipment giving the whole thing has one hell of a retro kick about it. This is another slice of somewhat kitsch mischief that once I had gotten over the somewhat austere vocal slant of singer Marino Funketti (is that name for real?) was a sure fire winner to my ears. Unsurprising that this band with a kooky wordplay name (one that actually works) hail from Sweden a country where flared trousers must surely be making a comeback. This actually demands that you light a josstick to accompany a playback and breathe in the heady musk as the music consumes you whole.
The storming fuzzy guitars at the start of ‘Caligula Nightclub’ (a great title) remind of The Jimi Hendrix Experience on overload. Vocals slow the pace down and are somewhat hard to describe, they break into powerized croons at times and mask the sort of insanity behind them like a deranged Arthur Brown just before he sets his head on fire. Galloping riffs do actually add a flame to the song and it’s not long before you are immersed in its scuzzy drive.
‘Domination’ cites a time when the likes of The Stones and Led Zep were dabbling in Crowleyian spell craft. There is certainly some sort of arcane and dark magick going on and you can easily imagine alters with skulls, pentagrams and daggers here. This is the sound of a true satanic cult perhaps far more so than the millions of bands with the word goat in their title, a modern day Black Widow perhaps. “I want your soul, I need your soul, give it to me now,” booms the vocalist before crooning into a crazed highly strung vocal harmony that would have King Diamond blushing.
Lyin’ King really has those notes hitting the heavens and the guitars pile into a drum solo that not many bands would dare to attempt in this day and age, for some reason a flashback to early viewings of ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’ accompany this in my minds eye. ‘Stars’ plays the blues, pure and sweet, vocals are clean in the extreme and full of soul this is an R&B classic if ever I have heard one.
You cant help but chuckle at the dubious lyrics of ‘Good Morning Little Schoolgirl’ but there is a certain air of mischievous innocence about it as it sounds like it comes from a time when you could walk past a playground without being met by shouts of paedo (not I hasten to add that this analogy is from any personal experience). Finishing off with Sucker For Your Love, well to me it sounds like The Red Hot Chilli Peppers and I am struck by this on every play, which considering everything else mentioned here, is really kind of odd. The shimmering guitars in this rule too.
In a nutshell if you want a bit of Blagick in your life you can’t go wrong here