Caught in the Carousel

The Phantom Family Halo

The Legend of Black Six
Cold Sweat

The Phantom Family Halo is a five piece out of Louisville, Ky. While the group’s label (Cold Sweat) tries to describe the band in a number of ways (“Think Syd Barrett and Scott Walker jamming with Hawkwind or The Birthday Party subdued to play a rendition of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway), anyone expecting anything remotely similar to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, will probably be disappointed, and fans of Scott Walkers might be equally confused. Any young band around in 2007 has a lot of rock history to draw its influences from and all of the above are certainly cool reference points, but hyperbolic label claim (and confusions) aside, I liked this CD.

The opening tune “Black River” ambles along in an early Can style--very minimal with mostly bass, drum and vocals. “Slender Head” conjures up an image of Iggy Pop fronting Black Sabbath, while “Lady Blue” brings to mind Marc Bolan on the Beard of Stars record. “In The Back Of My Head” has the primitive creepiness of early Fall records; “Broken By The Way” has a cool, early ‘70s riff rock thing going on. “Electric God In The Galaxy” is enhanced by some violin that’s close to those early Vander Graff Generator albums and “Stop the Biting” sounds like an outtake from the first Stooges record—it’s pretty creepy and the singer actually sounds like he’s losing blood.

Finally, “Black Six” starts of as a normal song that heads off into electronic pastures of experimental ambience and freak out before heading back to being a more conventional composition that is fully deserving of its fifteen minutes.

--Mike Richmond