Forgotten Pharaohs - King of Mirrors (2024) [Hi-Res]

From the beach fires of San Francisco, via the vistas of the Sierra Nevada to the Welsh mountain hideaways of ancient princes, the Forgotten Pharaohs debut King Of Mirrors is a worldly wonder, crafted by a classic rock journeyman. Born in Frome in Somerset but raised on the sounds of the American west coast, frontman Christian Pattemore is the archetypal man out of place and time; a Laurel Canyon dreamer from 1973 materialised amidst the ancient landscapes of rural Wales.

The band released their debut single 'Carousel' in June. An elemental voodoo blues, it seems to transpose Christian's blue-collar struggles in Wales to a metaphorical US Civil War setting. 'The 'frontier town' in the lyrics, is actually Hay-on-Wye because it’s a border town,' he says. 'The 'ten years crawling through the trenches' is literally working in the trenches on a lavender farm. It's about my life in Wales, and what I've had to live through. It’s very authentic.'
Similarly, 'Bryn Yr Hydd' sets Christian's personal hardships to a gritty Southern bluegrass rock while also referencing 'sleeping kings on the mountainside': Prince Llywelyn ap Gruydd, the last sovereign Prince of Wales, who took refuge in a cave in the hills near Christian's home the night before his death in battle against Edward I in 1282.
Christian further fed his Seventies Laurel Canyon obsession by taking a second job in a record shop in Hay-on-Wye. 'I never took pay,' he says. 'Instead I got as many LPs as I could by artists like Neil Young, Crosby Stills and Nash, Joni Mitchell, Little Feat, Steely Dan, anything Seventies Laurel Canyon, to learn more about this amazing music.'

Such natural talent naturally finds the sun. One fateful school sports day, Christian's croc flew off as he crossed the finish line as winner of the dad’s egg and spoon race and landed at the feet of a fellow parent by the name of Alan McGee, the music industry legend behind the Creation and Poptones labels. A demo changed hands and, eventually things fell into place during a writing session at Alan's London flat around 2018 which resulted in a stirring canyon ballad called 'Drive', which features on the album, about finding strength in the personal in a world gone mad: 'foreign nations go to war, turn the light off, you can do no more'. “' don't do the politics thing but I was so upset about the Trump administration,' Christian explains.

Alan passed the song to Killing Joke bassist and celebrated producer Youth. 'The original version was six minutes long and Youth goes 'it sounds like Zeppelin but it needs a chorus',' says Christian. 'He just took it onto another level, raised the bar completely. He said to Alan, 'Chris has got an album in him and I want to do this’.'

Meanwhile, accompanying Alan on a 2022 Cast tour reacquainted Christian with the band's guitarist Liam 'Skin' Tyson, whom he'd previously known through Robert Plant camp connections in Bath. Recognising a fellow rock soul, Skin agreed to join Christian in Forgotten Pharaohs, adding volcanic riffs and primal fire to his songs at sessions in Wales and at Youth's studio in the Sierra Nevada, near Granada in southern Spain later that year. 'Working on the songs with Christian was very easy,' Skin says. 'Like discovering some great lost music that I missed, but really we created something brand new.'

'This album sounds like a record from 1974 that got forgotten about,' says Christian; a dusty supergroup collaboration between CSNY, The Band and Steely Dan perhaps, remixed for the modern day by Queens of the Stone Age. Certainly the crackling power and rich imagery of King of Mirrors – along with its expert Laurel Canyon style layering of blues, folk, rock and dark psychedelia - have a timeless, pan-Atlantic quality.

Failure for King of Mirrors doesn’t seem an option. This is the record that galvanised McGee and Youth to launch a brand-new label Creation Youth, with Forgotten Pharaohs as the first full-length release. 'It's early stages but there is a lot of buzz about it,' Christian says. 'It's very exciting. it's a real honour.' For this musical visitor from 1973, his time has finally come.