Pharyngeal - Catharsis in Motion

Pharyngeal is an industrial metal out of Sweden whose first EP was released in December of 2015. Though it received little fanfare, it did manage to catch my attention shortly after its launch in February of 2016. While I saw potential in the project there was room to grow, and in the review I gave it a 6.5 out of 10 in total. Since then, Pharyngeal has been relatively quiet; not a peep has been heard. But, five years following their debut EP Pharyngeal has returned with a full-length album titled "Catharsis in Motion". The debut album from Pharyngeal is a polarizing piece to be sure, but none one that I walked away from without garnering some pleasure. 

Pharyngeal lists the likes of Psyclon Nine, Cedigest, 3TEETH, Dawn of Ashes, Ludovico Technique, Die Sektor, and Sonic Mayhem as sources of influence but I find that direction to be misleading. After multiple passes through the album, I found myself staring down a hole of black-metal inspired tracks with some industrial influences sprinkled within, rather than the full-on industrial-black-metal hybrid that both Psyclon Nine and Dawn of Ashes have accomplished in the past few years, the strict industrial metal of 3TEETH, and much less the electronic nature of the rest of the bands listed. This in no way impacts the score of the review, I just found it odd that that these bands would have been listed rather than other prominent black metal projects. 



So, the above paragraph sort of explains what I got myself into on the album; a ten-track trip through black metal-inspired music with sprinkles of industrial throughout. The first song on the album, 'Premeditation', has a nearly two-and-a-half minute intro of cinematic noise. After that play out, depressing guitar riffs come in. It quickens pace with drums following suit and is finished off with a speedy play of primarily guitar driven growls. It was not bad for a first song but I was felt with a "meh" feeling. It wasn't exactly great nor was it terrible but it was passable at the very least. It left me feeling apathetic. 

What followed for the next five songs sounded like what could have been a continuation of the first track if only it were mixed differently. For a majority of 'Vengeance', 'Catharsis in Motion', 'Preach', 'Voices Within', and 'Ceaselessly Hollow', the guitar rarely struck a different chord and sounded way too similar from song-to-song. Variation in speed and timing provided some relief but it wasn't enough to make me feel as if I was not stuck in a time-loop. There are points on some of the songs where the instrumentation is shaken up. Take 'Preach', for example. After a belligerent, all out attack on my aural senses, a small patch of ambient sound design plays out around the two-minute and forty-second mark. Despite it being an average display, it still made me perk up as I was hearing something different from the formula Pharyngeal had presented me with. The guitars on the album are extremely overpowering, as well, which does not allow the drums to pop or play. 

After those six songs, it was an absolute thrill to hear 'Pattern Repeat'; I was enthralled with an entirely new direction of sound that Pharyngeal has not displayed before. The guitar was no longer hard and crunching but clean with high notes. The drum pads and rhythm provided was allowed to come out to play and see the sun, and light piano work joined the fray later in the song. It was as if after a dark storm passed through, the clouds were finally clearing to make way for something a bit brighter. The seven-minute and forty-five second track was something I looked forward to on repeated plays of the album. 

Alas, my joy did not end there as 'In Retrospect' provided yet another instrumental and chilling track filled with ambiance and acoustic guitar. The sun went to rest after this song as a dark ambient track titled 'Void Walker' came along. Whispers replaced the growls and the ominous sound continued for around three-minutes and forty-five seconds before regressing to similar sounds already experimented with in the first half of the album. 

I think 'Relinquishment', the final track on the album, is a testament to what Pharyngeal can achieve as a multi-instrumentalist doing it all on his own. The eight minute track while still incorporating crunchy guitars from previous songs, also takes the brilliant ambiance and differing tones from the likes of 'Pattern Repeat' and 'In Retrospect' and merges it all into one beautiful cathartic end. 

I had a tough time scoring this album as the first half of the album I found to be bloody-boring on repeated listens. But, every time I hit the likes of 'Pattern Repeat' and onward, I found myself in a pleasurable state. And those final four songs alone make up for half the album itself. I do think that Pharyngeal needs to perform a balancing act in the future, but they're nearly there in terms of hitting gold. With further practice, refinement, and deviation from the norm, Pharyngeal should be able to turn out a wonderful album. "Catharsis in Motion" as is stands, however, is an album that I only really started to enjoy in the second half of its run. 

This review was commissioned through our Ko-fi page.
Feb 01 2021