Home / Side Projects / Pharaoh Overlord
Pharaoh Overlord: Circle's Stoner-Rock Twin Since 2000
Formed 2000, Pori, Finland · Stoner rock / krautrock / avant rock
The Stoner-Rock Twin
The Pharaoh Overlord band formed in Pori in 2000 as an outlet for Circle members' love of stoner rock, founded by Jussi Lehtisalo, Janne Westerlund, and Tomi Leppänen — three-quarters of Circle's own lineup at the time. Julius and Pekka Jääskeläinen joined later as regular contributors. Since 2019's 5, the project has operated as a duo of Lehtisalo and Leppänen. For long stretches, the two bands have shared so much personnel that it's genuinely difficult to say where one band ends and the other begins — which is a large part of why it's arguably as well known internationally as Circle itself.
Musically it oscillates between repetitive stoner rock, improvisational avant-garde sound collage, and 80s-flavored heavy rock. The catalog runs to at least 18 albums and EPs across two decades, released through a long chain of small, credible labels — Ektro (their most frequent home), No Quarter, Riot Season, Svart, Kemado, and, for the two most recent albums, Rocket Recordings.
The project's best-known moment is a real, well-documented stunt: in 2015, Circle released an album titled Pharaoh Overlord, and the band released one titled Circle. Neither was a covers record — each band made a genuine, distinct album under the other's name. The Line of Best Fit reviewed both (rating the pair 8/10), describing Circle's Pharaoh Overlord as kosmische/space-rock leaning and "little short of revelatory," and its own Circle as the heavier, stranger record of the two. The Quietus has covered the band seriously and repeatedly since, including reviews of 2018's Zero, 2020's 6 (which features guest vocals from Aaron Turner of Isis/Sumac), and 2025's Louhi (Turner again).
The Early Years: A Circle Stoner Rock Side Project
The project's debut, Pharaoh Overlord #1, came out via Ektro in 2000, the same year it formed as a straightforward Circle stoner rock outlet — a rawer, riffier lane than what Circle itself was doing at the time. The 2000s saw a steady run of records hopping labels: #2 on No Quarter (2003), The Battle Of The Axehammer on Last Visible Dog (2004), #3 on Riot Season (2004), #4 on Ektro (2005), and Siluurikaudella on Ektro (2010). That decade closed out the project's most classically "stoner" phase before the sound started drifting toward the kosmische and collage territory it's known for now.
The Faust Connection
One of the project's most durable outside collaborators is Hans Joachim Irmler of the German krautrock originators Faust. He first appears on 2007's Live In Suomi Finland, recorded live at Kipsari in Helsinki on 12 May 2006 and afterward remixed by Irmler at his own Fauststudio — and he returns more than a decade later as a guest on 2018's Zero, released on Ektro/Hydra Head after a three-year gap. Zero opens with a cover of Spacemen 3's "Revolution" sung in a growl by Antti Boman of the Finnish death metal band Demilich, a performance one reviewer compared to Laibach's Milan Fras.
Roadburn, Supersonic, and Aaron Turner's Long Runway
In 2011, Circle and the Pharaoh Overlord band were named joint artists-in-residence at the Netherlands' Roadburn Festival, playing the event that April, and the same year they crossed to the UK for Birmingham's Supersonic Festival. Aaron Turner's involvement also has a longer lead-in than the "6" credit suggests: Zero (2018) went out on Ektro/Hydra Head, the label Turner founded himself, two years before he stepped up as featured vocalist on 6 — a detail that makes his eventual role fronting the band look less like a one-off guest slot and more like a relationship years in the making.
Pharaoh Overlord: Frequently Asked Questions
Was Pharaoh Overlord always this experimental, or did it start out differently?
It started rawer and simpler as a Circle stoner rock side project — launched in 2000 for three of Circle's four members, with early-2000s records like #1, #2, and #3 sitting much closer to straight riff-rock than the kosmische, collage-heavy sound of later albums like Zero, 6, and Louhi.
Is Hans Joachim Irmler's involvement a one-time guest spot?
No — the Faust keyboardist has worked with the band across more than a decade, first remixing and guesting on 2007's live album Live In Suomi Finland, then returning as a guest on 2018's Zero.
How did Aaron Turner actually end up fronting the band?
The connection predates his vocal credit. Turner's own label, Hydra Head Records, co-released its 2018 album Zero together with Ektro — two years before he joined as featured vocalist on 2020's 6, suggesting the pairing grew out of an existing relationship rather than a cold approach.
Has Pharaoh Overlord toured or played festivals outside Finland?
Yes — in 2011, Circle and Pharaoh Overlord were joint artists-in-residence at the Netherlands' Roadburn Festival, and that same year the band also played the UK's Supersonic Festival in Birmingham.
What do critics compare the band's later, Aaron Turner-era sound to?
Bandcamp Daily's review of 2025's Louhi traced its droning, hypnotic pulse back to Tony Conrad's minimalist drone work, specifically Conrad's 1973 collaboration with Faust — situating the band in a lineage of avant-garde drone rather than conventional metal or stoner rock, despite Turner's growled vocals.