Pombagira, built around the couple Pete and Carolyn Hamilton-Giles, have never been an average act. Dwelling in between the scenes of Doom and Psych-Rock, they managed to get a solid fan-base of a rather specific, probable slightly intoxicated horde of spiritual-minded lovers of unconventional, mind-transcending Music.
This album, Maleficia Lamiah, was recorded at the famous Foel Studio (The Wounded Kings, Cnoc An Tursa, Primordial, Moss, Winterfylleth etc.) during the month of June 2012, and finished at Earthworks in September that very same year. It comes in two editions: the two-track CD (which lasts for forty one minutes; it’s this edition we, meaning: the Concreteweb-office, did receive) and the 12” vinyl-edition, limited to 500 double gatefold copies; the latter coming with three bonus songs, amongst which the The Longboatmen cover song Take Her Anytime (but I can’t write anything about these additional tracks for not having heard them - yet).
The opening title track immediately gives an idea of this band’s musical intentions: mixing ‘old goodies’ à la Black Sabbath, Caravan and Pink Floyd with the actual approach of, let’s say, Sleep, Om, Pelican, Boris and Electric Wizard. It’s a Stoner / Doom / Sludge / Psychedelica-trip again (Maleficia Lamiah actually is Pombagira’s fifth album). The album is completely down-tuned and unpolished, with the most haunting mood to date. It shows when the second track (Grave Cardinal) too explores the dimensions of psychotropic aural experiments with that specific, characterising and kaleidoscopic beyond-space vibe.
Vibrant and exotic, trippy and smoky; Maleficia Lamiah opens gates to the unknown. Question is: will you enter and, finally, is there any return?