Press

Pennyblackmusic
If you were to imagine a band that Seasick could have been in if he was more rugged and gravely then you're half way there, but to be honest Phibes make him look like Jack Johnson. … I can't recommend trying to track them down high enough, if of course they don't track you down first!"

The Examiner
With twelve original songs that perfectly mesh The Agnostics' acoustic pickin' and clank n' pound blues with Jackson Phibes' electric six-string rock, Campfire Tales simultaneously proves itself both an extension of old Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir and an entirely new animal. And this one howls, let me tell you. It marks its territory. It leaves deep claw grooves in your front door. It hunts and devours its prey. Then, when the sun comes up, it finds itself returned to form, sprawled out naked in the tall weeds beside an old stretch of highway, blood caked around its mouth and dark earth under its fingernails. To be sure, this album is the dead man dangling from the noose, the cloaked villian tying the damsel in distress to the train tracks, the two glowing eyes peering at you from the tree line, the UFO sighting you never told people about for fear they would think you were mad, the mysterious noises in the night, the pile of bones in the crawl space...and so on.

Blues Wax/Blues Revue
It is entertaining, unusual, energetic, and, above all, interesting. And that alone should be enough to recommend this CD. And I do. But I warn you, if you like your music to stay within well-defined genre parameters, this may be a challenge for you, but it is a challenge worth accepting. 8/10

Herohill.com, January, 2012
"Campfire Tales is one of the most innovative and cohesive collaborations I’ve heard in years. Agnostic Phibes aim to take back the night from the hippie guitar circles and psychedelics (ironically, the project will most certainly help Phibes find a home with more earthy/folky fans). These songs pay tribute to the chilling tales that have been shared for generations, but they go past “the killer was in the backseat” and “the call was coming from inside the house” as the band tries to strike fear into the masses with unsettling tales of serial killers and savage slayings. Somehow they do this with a smirk."

Penguin Eggs
The Rhythm & Blood Conspiracy's eerie numbers also turn out to be a perfect showcase for both Phibes and Keelaghan's hefty guitar chops, neither of which are anything to sneer at. As for the murder ballads, they turn out to be an ideal meeting point for folk music and horror-rock.

UberRock
Though an unlikely collaboration, and whilst they may provide some rather ghostly song themes, what they actually serve up here are some rather splendid tunes, with an exquisite sounding fifties guitar courtesy of the mysterious Phibes being a particular highlight

Beatroute magazine, March 2012
What do you get when the frontman from an infamous Calgarian garage punk outfit collides (and colludes) with the eerily nu-stalgiac backwater bastards of the Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir? A cross-cultural conspiracy written in slavish rhythm and whisky-cut blood, my friends. Inexorably drawn to the warped legends that feed the Choir’s Appalachian roots, Forbidden Dimension’s Jackson Phibes threw his lot in with that of guitarist/vocalist Bob Keelaghan, upright bassist Vladmir Sobolewski and drummer Jay Woolley. Thus, the Agnostic Phibes Rhythm & Blood Conspiracy has spent the past two years steadily grinding out genre-bending sonic spectres that latch on to their prey with dual guitar hooks. Campfire Tales is the result of Agnostic Phibes' spooky exploits, a toothsome collection of folk punk ribaldry; the group’s debut flips conventional rock and roll on its side just to see what’s lurking underneath.


Lonesome Highway
Crossroads blues, midnight murder ballads and ferocious folk fables that breathe life into song styles that have been left for dead but have now been given a jolt of electricity that brings them back to a new life.

Rootstime.be
De schimmen van ‘Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’, Hitchcock, Tom Dooley, Merle Travis, Santana, The Black Keys, Peter en De Wolf en ‘Casper The Evil Ghost’ hechten zich aan de bizarre songs van het ongebreideld groepje….Op de andere wisselen de stemmen van Phibes en Keelaghan elkaar af als magiërs in hun eigen broeierig universum.