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I found it ironic to be listening to an album called PRAYER OF DEATH during a four day period of uninterrupted mental and physical pain, via influenza, in which I truly embraced the album's title concept… over and over.   Between bows to the "porcelain god" and fever sweats I maintained an open ear and mind to the sounds of Entrance's third album, PRAYER OF DEATH.  It rocked my gypsy soul.

 

Hoping delirium has not marred my opinion of the album, I venture to say that it is a "trip" at best- and a muddle of moans and fuzz at its worst.   The latter, however, may not bother many psychedelic rock fans whom, entrusted with the aid of their fine chemical and personal "effects", can achieve almost any good vibe from this album's occasionally bogged sections.   Oh, and believe me.  I've read those listener responses to this album littered all over the internet… you silly psychonauts.

Entrance is essentially a moniker for the man behind the music, Guy Blakeslee, who has released two prior albums of profoundly more bare instrumentation before leaping into the electrifying and filling process of his one-man blues sound on PRAYER OF DEATH.   Here, Blakeslee's one man corner blues sound is augmented with several additional musicians, notably Paz Lenchantin(A Perfect Circle) whom spills his string arrangements all over the blues rock tracks.   In the process, Entrance's familiar stripped sound is breaded with lush accompaniment and dipped in the electric fuzz fryer.  What my none too subtle cooking analogy means to convey is that these otherwise simple songs, in composition, come through soaked and battered in ambient, psychedelic production.   However more "produced" this feels from Entrance's previous outings (which it does) it is still rather loose and jangled; there are no slick qualities to it.   This feature alone is what lends to the murkier sections on the album. 

Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing when viewed in context of Blakeslee's vocals, which seem to swoop and scratch all over the tracks in the kind of discombobulated way that only would be viable in such a loose record.   Sounding akin, or aspiring, to Jim Morrison's shaman tendencies Blakeslee lulls us into a dark odyssey of ruminations on death and all that mysticism one will attempt to distill from it.   At moments, as on the track, "Silence on a Crowded Train", Guy Blakeslee recalls Robert Plant's most forlorn moans.  While a positive illusion to vocally create, it obviously will suffer the detraction of not actually being Robert Plant coming through the speakers.   I'm not being harsh… it's just a modest criticism.  I mean, come on!  I'm talking about a comparison to ROBERT PLANT!   To even have such a comparison is more than good enough for the rest of us naives to go on in light of the current wasteland we call the popular blues rock today.   So in summation,  Entrance's got the vocal chops to pacify those desiring virile blues wails.  Moving on to the bottom line.

Entrance does a damn good job of producing one of the grittier blues rock experiences I've heard in a while.   Yes, it is an experience, although not quite a Jimi Hendrix Experience (Blakeslee does play his guitar backwards too, on a footnote).  Whether it is a balls out lyrical journey into the "what's" and "if's" of death on many of the rockin' tracks, or the enlightened sitar/oud-infused instrumental on the track, "Requiem for Sandy Bull( R.I.P.), or even the sole bare acoustic, "Prayer of Death", you are going to want to listen to the album once with a clear head and once with a head ripped on boomers and LSD, as it was originally intended.   Well, I don't know for sure if this was how PRAYER OF DEATH was intended, but all I can say is that it went down smooth in my invalid delirium… and then I got all better and it sucked.   Yes, I kid.  It's an odd one worth a listen.  Something may just come of this Entrance.