ENTRANCE
Prayer of Death
Tee-Pee Records
· Blues-based album with unusual influences.
This is an absolutely wonderful concept album beaten out in a lo-fi analog studio format reminiscent in some ways of what Eugene Chadbourne’s Shockabilly or Edmonton’s The Imagineers were doing in previous decades. Like the two groups mentioned above, Entrance is blues-based (in the grungy Haight-Ashbury style of blues) and calls on a wide variety of influences ranging from The Butthole Surfers, Jimi Hendrix, cotton field gospel songs, sufi poets, the Tibetan Book of the Dead and well, the list goes on. The point is that they actually draw on these influences and create their own world of sound and poetry. This is what makes the band shine above the cattle train loads of artists simply reformatting the classics and this is what makes this album a classic unto itself.
Prayer of Death is a lustful rejoicing in death and the afterlife without the despair and misery that often accompanies such projects. On occasion, the sentiment can seem like hopeful Christianity but beyond the Christian belief in heaven, Entrance do not bank on the good end. It could be heaven, it could be hell, it could be reincarnation, but it is somewhere other than here. It is merely a change of venue and an interesting progression following the inevitable end to life.
Knowledgeable punks will perk up their ears knowing that Big Black’s Steve Albini lent a hand in making the album possible and knowledgeable followers of pop culture will enjoy the dedication to a herd of dead geniuses. Fans of psychedelia will drool over the distorted sitars and buried echoed vocals. Discerning music lovers will just love the whole damn thing.
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