Spring Break
Pyramids makes 'an interesting trip'
Taylor Short
Issue date: 7/10/08 Section: ARTS & LIFE
As soon as you think every sub-genre has found its niche somewhere along the modern rock spectrum, an album like Pyramids wipes the board in one giant, disorienting wave of reverb.
The Denton four-piece self-titled debut reaches for post-rock peaks, swirling heavily chorused guitars and dream-like vocals with a disturbingly glitchy drum machine to create one of the most confusing and strangely disarming releases this year.
Although recently signed to Hydra Head records, little is known about Pyramids, even in Denton. The members, who apparently refuse to play live, are enigmatic, absent from the Denton music scene and even the all-knowing Internet. Their MySpace page offers little in concrete details, with only a paragraph of ambiguous narrative reflecting the cacophonous tracks themselves.
Album opener "Sleds" creeps along with gritty guitar washes opposite ghostly vocals, something like a mournful Sigur Rós possessed, displaying some of the rare traces of beauty found on the disc. Like most songs, it ends before the listener can cling to anything resembling structure and leads to the boisterous metallic sound-scapes of "Igloo" where we are first introduced to the album's backbone of inhuman drum beats, typical of the rest of the album.
"End Resolve" begins with a guitar riff that actually sounds like a guitar before more feedback and distant, distorted wails preface chugging drums and orgasmic gasps to create one of the more epic tracks on the album.
"Hellmonk" and "Ghost" serve to further reiterate the band's ability to create blurry swaths of sound meant to bewilder on an album where each song begins like a dream, in limbo between bliss and chaos, only to dissipate upon waking.
Pyramids might please fans of co-droners, Jesu but fans of…well, anything else will probably just become frustrated and lost in the unapologetic dissonance of it all. And maybe that's the big secret, the answer to the band's sonic riddles, because Pyramids exists in a world where instruments are simply means to a puzzling end, and all is left floating in the ether. Despite the ambiguity, Pyramids made an interesting trip of an album that leaves doors wide open for an exciting sophomore effort.
The Denton four-piece self-titled debut reaches for post-rock peaks, swirling heavily chorused guitars and dream-like vocals with a disturbingly glitchy drum machine to create one of the most confusing and strangely disarming releases this year.
Although recently signed to Hydra Head records, little is known about Pyramids, even in Denton. The members, who apparently refuse to play live, are enigmatic, absent from the Denton music scene and even the all-knowing Internet. Their MySpace page offers little in concrete details, with only a paragraph of ambiguous narrative reflecting the cacophonous tracks themselves.
Album opener "Sleds" creeps along with gritty guitar washes opposite ghostly vocals, something like a mournful Sigur Rós possessed, displaying some of the rare traces of beauty found on the disc. Like most songs, it ends before the listener can cling to anything resembling structure and leads to the boisterous metallic sound-scapes of "Igloo" where we are first introduced to the album's backbone of inhuman drum beats, typical of the rest of the album.
"End Resolve" begins with a guitar riff that actually sounds like a guitar before more feedback and distant, distorted wails preface chugging drums and orgasmic gasps to create one of the more epic tracks on the album.
"Hellmonk" and "Ghost" serve to further reiterate the band's ability to create blurry swaths of sound meant to bewilder on an album where each song begins like a dream, in limbo between bliss and chaos, only to dissipate upon waking.
Pyramids might please fans of co-droners, Jesu but fans of…well, anything else will probably just become frustrated and lost in the unapologetic dissonance of it all. And maybe that's the big secret, the answer to the band's sonic riddles, because Pyramids exists in a world where instruments are simply means to a puzzling end, and all is left floating in the ether. Despite the ambiguity, Pyramids made an interesting trip of an album that leaves doors wide open for an exciting sophomore effort.
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