Band:	Aktor
Album:	Paranoia
Style:	Psychedelic hard rock, Heavy metal
Release date:	February 20, 2015
A review by:	R'Vannith

01. Devil And Doctor
02. Gone Again
03. Stop Fooling Around
04. Too Young To Die
05. Six Silver Suns
06. I Was The Son Of God
07. Something Nasty
08. Where Is Home
09. Never Ending No
10. The Mover

Two Finns and an American walk into a time warp?

The point of arrival is about forty years in our past in a place smothered in synth, where hard rock and heavy metal meet regularly to commune all things psychedelic, head bopping and mind popping.

The American in question is Pharaoh's drummer, who goes by various aliases such as Chris Black, and has a hand and voice in a number of bands ranging from the ever-evolving heavy metal of Dawnbringer to his solo efforts in High Spirits (his latest record under this name being nominated for Metal Storm's Best Heavy Metal Album for 2014). In 2015 Chris, taking up another alias here as "Professor Black," vocalises the debut effort from a new name in Aktor, offering a charismatic hard rock record on the cusp of heavy metal with the tangible taste of the 70's in psychedelics.

Joined by two Finns from the eccentric Circle, what is ably laid down in Paranoia is an exercise in nostalgia, a brief but effective homage to the heyday of bands like BÖC and Budgie, but managing to create its own character. Layered with the kind of synth textural features designed to locate the listener in lava-lamp land, its authentic retro feel is what sets the record apart.

While the tracks tend to blend and blur into one another with something of a haze of psychedelic lethargy, Paranoia as a whole is of adequate brevity to minimise this as an issue. An engaging sense of rhythm is pumped into every quick cut, on average lasting a little over three minutes each, and the album in entirety having a run-time of just over half-an-hour. Despite the concise duration, the psychedelic components aren't always enough to clear away the dragging impression onset by the album at its slower movements in numbers such as "Where Is Home". The focus on drum work and rhythm consistently provides toe-tapping beats, yet the guitar and bass are rather less engaging in continuation, filling in the sound amply and maintaining the flow without standing out on their own terms and often operating as a supportive component of the instrumentation, irrespective of the occasionally noticeable lick and memorable melody. The rhythm section considered as a whole often feels a bit too laid-back and lazy, understandably owing in part to the distinctive and charismatic psychedelic emphasis in synths.

All things considered, this bite-size retro record is easily digestible and rewarding given repeated listens; an in-and-out episode in psychedelics with short duration that's more than likely to meet its quota in character before it comes to an end.