They're signed to Hydra Head, and thus labelmates with weirdos Kayo Dot, so I guess no one should be surprised that A. Turner's baby is giving birth to another elephantiasis-bitten progeny. Still--I like to think I have a pretty eclectic palate: I'd happily put on Battles to drift off to sleep--I was mesmerized by my Pyramids cherry-poppin'. (I still can't believe there was a mainstream swing-revival band with "cherry-poppin'" in their fuckin' name. Not song title, lyric, or obscure liner note jotting, but NAME.)
Anyway, simply genre-ized this is dandling noise imbued with distant double bass, the only graspable vocals ethereal croons. This does Pyramids a disservice, though, because to foreground ambience means to, well, change the definition of ambience altogether. But they don't just hover a lantern over the skittish ambience, they bludgeon it with the seething light, and hungrily produce a flare gun which they unload through ambience's eye socket and up through its skull--where they wait to digest the orgasming torch and its contrail of matter upon exit .
Reviews have christened the sound a soothing nightmare. If you haven't done so, you can listen to the full album here: http://www.hydrahead.org/hh/pyramids_site/, at least for a limited time or until you muster enough energy to steal it. I christen it one of my favorite albums of the year and I think a lot of the people who have criticized it don't realize that it's not as impenetrable as they might think; frightening yes, oblique no. I'm sorry if I sound like David Lynch claiming that Mulholland Drive is linear: while it may be true, it doesn't fuckin' feel that way to anyone but him! To be fair, Pyramids often sounds like when I accidentally have two songs playing at the same time: somehow it works enough to either temporarily suspend one's dissonance threshold, euthanize it all together, or prove it never existed, that the ears synergize bereavement with romance of their own God-love-'em volition.
Pitchfork recognized the foursome as a raw but formidable talent, though still awarded the record only a 6.5: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/51334-pyramids-pyramids. Hey, at least Pyramids didn't get the Kayo Dot treatment: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/142842-kayo-dot-blue-lambency-downward. Yikes! And stupid! I love BLD for the artwork and "The Awkward Wind Wheel" alone. And can you believe that Delusions of Adequacy had the nerve to deem Toby Driver's serene vocals "useless." That's like saying Paul Banks shouldn't wack off to Ian Curtis. It doesn't feel right. (I love Interpol!) That's okay, though; unlike some, DoA is perceptive enough to see that the Dot is "bringing a worthwhile sound to the current music scene."
But this is about these horrorlullers and the essential cut "Hellmonk" which wears its name like a tattooed glove. Because the idea of a song being a portal through which you embark on a journey is not an especially novel one, Pyramids does not proffer the song as this nor even merely a logbook of your disappearance into the song some time before--ostensibly prior to when the band crafted it and the composition began to fester aglow on their limbs--as a chaste monk and the brimstone immurment thereof. Rather, it begins before the prelude, the womb's anteroom if you will, as you emerge from the same cocoon of sulfur, lust of horizon whose poles are in concert with your heart and for which you inexorably bloom. So if you download, stream, or mix-tape-in-order-to-appear-avant-garde one song, make it that oh-so-witty oxymoron.
Warning: Stay far away from Pyramids if (1) disgusted easily by pretension, either contained within an album or inside a pretention-prone reviewer of said album; or (2) unnerved by orphaned susurrations prophesizing your cerebellum's hum trajectory.
No comments:
Post a Comment