Cassette Review // Phantoms vs Fire "My Mind As Your Amusement Park" (Blackjack Illuminist Records)

€8 //
Edition of 50 //
https://blackjackilluministrecords.bandcamp.com/album/my-mind-as-your-amusement-park //

This one starts off with eerie tones like ghosts, notes come through and can shake the speakers and then behind it all it feels like we're drifting- a little in that "Knight Rider" sense.   There is a darkness as it grows and then with a screech build up of sorts it all just comes together and ends in a second.

Magical tones find their way into the next song and there is a haunted part to this, like something out of "The X-Files".    As the intensity grows it hits this thundering sound like a storm and then fades out.    As you can feel it dropping down now, the tones back and forth pick back up and it has a rather "Alien" feel about it (like the movie)

As I feel like we're becoming hypnotized with a little of that black and yellow, it also seems to go more into the realm of sci-fi.   Spatial and desolate now, it feels like we are on some other planet with no way of returning home and yet you can still hear that occasional chirping of the birds.

A sad and hollow feel, a ringing and then it sounds like the radio station changes.   Someone says "Good evening ladies and gentlemen" and we're into a new loop of dark tones.   It begins driving now, somewhat industrial, as horns seemingly blare through glitches behind all of it.   In some other form, this could be the sound of traffic and road work, but through these tools it is profoundly deep music.

Beats kick in now and I'm thinking of "Run Lola Run".    It keeps kind of switching over into this old-timey music and I do enjoy that, but then it comes right back into these sharp howls and video game beats which make me feel like "Resident Evil".    More words- about Hollywood now- and we go into the darkness of that old rusty guitar sound: somewhere between the future and Johnny Cash.

Psychedelic laughing comes through now.   Calmer now, you can hear the drumsticks click.  Whooshes and whirrs.    Haunted like ghosts now- these screams- bring in this acoustic guitar riff on the next track and it has a classic rock vibe to it.    This has a drive to it as well, and then it feels as if vocals are trying to come through behind it. 

Notes enter to start the flip side in this Tell-Tale Heart type of way and it just has this pulsating drive behind it.   Next we have this sound which feels like a train whistle blowing and I'm reminded of such a setting as being on a train or at least near their tracks.   Notes ting in now.   The intensity of these notes persists and it feels like something out of a Hitchcock film, it's that type of suspense.   Once again it cracks into that thunderstorm.

The tones take on an Oriental sound now.    Then it switches to that instrumental hip hop feel, that black and yellow groove.  Once again, the birds are chirping now with those sad and alone post rock tones.   It's trying to come through with these notes but feels like it's slightly muted.    There is also a "Donnie Darko" vibe to this.   And a crackling brings that song to an end.

We're into full FNL mode now, the tones just echoing through the speakers.