‘We Have Done Nothing and We Are All Out Of Ideas’ is a mouthful of an album title and it kind of sums up this album. It’s a bit overblown, a bit long and, well, a bit much. Pharoahs are made up of ex-members of HPR and are clearly very talented guys and a very talented band. But often their ideas end up a bit messy. Their like for choppy indie rock often means the songs end up a bit lost in time changes and squally guitars. And even though there’s plenty of melody on the record as a whole, it’s often lost in a cacophony of noise. ‘Squashed Against My Wall’ is a glorious track though, switching from the twee indie rock the band to the wonderfully catchy in the blink of an eye. But then there are songs like ‘Space is a Waste of Space‘ and ‘Gravity’ which seem to meander through and never really hit the mark they so often threaten to.
Pharoahs are a very talented band and clearly have ideas to widen musical boundaries by chucking in different styles. It works at times. At others it’s too complex for it’s own good. I’ll put my hands up and say I’m not that big a fan of bands that play this type of music as I tend to find it’s too messy when not done right and so maybe my words are slightly uninformed. So while I can obviously recognise the talent, I think the band need to look a bit at structures and just how much is going on at once. Good, but room for improvement.