Pombagira – Maleficia Laminah

Black Axis

Pombagira‘s last album Iconoclast Dream was a revelation to me with the immense dirty darkness they presented. Upon receiveing a brand new CD from the duo, hopes for more dark dirtyness appears in my mind. But after the first spin, I was in doubt. I am not sure if it was the day, or anything else, but it didn’t do anything for me at the time. I was especially unsure about the second track. But when in doubt, it makes for doing something else; take it for a road trip!

Maleficia Laminah are two long tracks, and by the first look, appear to be about death and underwordly matters. The darkness in the music is not that apparent, although the sound is very much on the dirtier side. The music is kind of a merging or a meeting of some sort, of early ’70s Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma era, spiced with some prog rock attitude. The sound of Sabbath, but the harmonies of Floyd, as shown how they mix the chords and how they move the chords within the melody. Peter and Carolyn Hamilton-Giles have of course been listening to a lot of ’70s music, but I am not in a position to say that they have been influenced by this or that. It is just that they somehow make me remember these things from the days. They even made me dig out the Ummagumma LP and give it a few spins. This album is also more high spirited and lighter than the previous album, and works fine as a road companion.

Maleficia Laminah is not about inventing something new, or even re-inventing something old. I find it not at all experimental, and they have abandoned the doom thing totally. It is not about pushing any borders or limits by their own standards. It is about a couple of people having fun making music they are inspired by, or so it seems to me anyway. But when Iconoclast Dream rests in my shelves for the stormy dark nights, this new Pombagira album will stay in the car and wait for the next road trip.

-Ronny Wærnes-