Pitchfork

If Baltimore indie bluesman Guy Blakeslee previously got his blues direct from the source, then on Prayer of Death, his third full-length as Entrance, he orders through a middleman-- namely, 60s psychedelia. Here, he electrifies his blues riffs with strong doses of Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones, which strengthens instead of dilutes them. By emphasizing this aspect of his music, Blakeslee is essentially trading his white blues jones-- which at best was a hard sell, at worst insufferable-- for a new set of pretensions, and whether he's taking a short detour or cutting a new trail for himself remains to be seen.

However, as a psychedelic shaman bringing us news from other planes of existence (dig that album cover), he sounds much more persuasive, and his tweaked aspirations keep the mix of blues and rock on Prayer of Death from sounding slick, calculated, or Eric Clapton. In fact, the tangles of guitar noise on these eight songs give Blakeslee more opportunities to emphasize his vocals. He peppers "Pretty Baby" and the eight-minute epic "Lost in the Dark" with feral grunts that are part mortal cough, part rock'n'roll yell, and his unhinged howl rises above the electrified din even as it becomes part of it.

It helps that Blakeslee has assembled an adventurous group of collaborators to back him up. Creating a maelstrom from which he can wail feverishly, the band-- which includes A Perfect Circle's Paz Lenchantin, filmmaker Maximilla Lukacs, and Derek James-- isn't just loud, it's intense. Lenchantin's string arrangements add unbearable tension to "Silence on a Crowded Train" and "Pretty Baby", and his downlow bass licks provide a densely melodic bottom end over which the guitars can twist and swirl and drone frantically. In this setting, even the lone acoustic blues number, "Prayer of Death", sounds better, more directed and controlled, a break from the bands' doomy force.

Perhaps most importantly, Entrance's combination of blues riffs and psychedelic drone reinforces the fears of mortality and annihilation that course through the lyrics and thread the songs into a powerful statement about deathly dread. "Your head's in the grave", he wails on "Pretty Baby", "but you still don't know why." Reportedly inspired by "the daily death-vibrations of the Modern World", Prayer of Death kicks off with the amped-up "Grim Reaper Blues", which rides a muddy blues riff and an effective call-and-response between singer and band, followed by "Silence on a Crowded Train", its paranoia offset by its immense, edge-of-the-precipice sound. And "Requiem for Sandy Bull (R.I.P.)" is noteworthy less for its sitar drone tribute to the late musician than for the fact that it's a memorial. For Blakeslee, death is the ultimate psychedelic, erasing the mind completely instead of expanding it-- and by the closing track, Blakeslee has made some sort of peace with the idea, which makes the album sound like a journey instead of a tract. His final words are "When you think about death every morning, don't you ever be afraid!" If only it were that easy.