PYRAMIDAL

"Pyramidal" is a Psychedelic/Space Rock band from Spain which was formed in 2010, and has since released 2 EPs and 3 full albums. Their 3rd album is their self titled album. Their core line up has remained the same through the years, namely Miguel Rodes on bass; Miguel Angel Sanz on electric guitar and synthesizer; Oscar Soler on acoustic and electric guitar and vocals; and Lluis Mas on drums and percussion. On the Pyramidal album, there are also some guest musicians which includes Cesar Tenorio on synths and effects throughout the album. There are 5 tracks that span a total runtime of almost 45 minutes, all of the tracks, except one, exceed the 9 minute mark.

Shimmering and scratching guitars set the mood for the first track called "Visions of An Astral Journey" and soon these are joined by the sax played by guest Arantxa Marin. The sax stops long enough for the guitar to lead some progressive riffs. Intensity grows and a short chaotic section leads into a heavy section led by guitars and a strong progressive section before things calm a bit and a slow, heavy guitar solo begins. The tempo and themes change around quite a bit but return later making this feel more structured than free form, but after a while of this, the track slips into a more stoner vibe and becomes more improvisational. The sax puffs and squeals along while the heavy guitar support push it along. While the track has a heavy stoner vibe, it uses highly progressive riffs and flows seamlessly from structured to free form several times.

"Creatures of the Ancient World" continues with the progressiveness of the previous track with complex riffs and a guitar line that builds intensity. It all breaks down soon with a more pensive section that includes a fluttering sax again from Marin. Layered wordless vocal effects give some texture to the mid-Eastern influenced theme. Soon, subdued vocals are added to the mix. A violin comes into play from another guest Judti Aliaga. The space rock vibe is clearly in play here as it floats along for a while. Suddenly before the 5 minute mark, things suddenly take off as the rhythm section kicks into full gear. More heavy riffing continues from the guitar which supplies the tricky progressive sound. A minute later, the bass ushers in an even more intense and upbeat section full of guitar and the previous theme comes back in an improvised and uptempo manner. Before 8 minutes, we enter a floating, psychedelic stage and shimmering guitars and a heavy, grooving bass line keep it moving forward to a heavy climax.

"Unconscious Oscillations" is the short track on the album at just over 3 minutes. This is a spacey track with an ascending and descending guitar line and bits of sax added in to the swirling background. Strange vocal sounds are deep in the mix.

"Digital Madness" has a more laid-back feel in the beginning, but soon the drums kick in and it grows a bit heavier. Vocals follow the descending guitar riff note for note. This repeats a few times before the tempo levels to a fast flowing sound and a soaring guitar solo begins. Guitars continue to lead this track from structured sections to improvised sections, and undecipherable vocals both sung and spoken appear at different sections. Things calm down a bit at the 7 minute mark and then intensify a bit before the track ends.

The longest track at over 14 minutes, "Alussa Infinity", starts with a fast, almost James Bond-style riff and plays off of that in the beginning. After some stop/start style riffing, the mood shifts as guitars play broken minor chords and bring the track to a slower and darker pace and an evil sounding vocal whispers in the background. This almost nears a doom metal style during this section, but it is somewhat restrained from going there completely. Suddenly, at 6 minutes, another sudden shift to a faster rhythm starts, things still remaining dark and getting more dangerous sounding. More harsh vocals come out from the background of it all. Then after 7 minutes, things get suddenly calm as a chiming guitar plays alone with a few synth effects. Soon, drums push forward into another section heavy with symphonic style synths and then the violin starts in, and this almost reminds one of GY!BE as intensity builds and the violin and guitars build things to a climax. After 11 minutes, this is reached and everything breaks down to a lone bass playing a repeating note with ominous effects go on around it. When the drums come back in, it all levels out to a free floating mood and guitars improvise to the ending.

This is really an excellent album, definitely using the traits of stoner rock, psychedelic rock and space rock, but incorporating a lot more progressive structure than you would expect all through the album and adding several surprises along the way that borrow from other genres, making music with an enormous amount of depth. Even though this is mostly instrumental with a few vocals added in more for musicality than for lyrical content, and even though the tracks are mostly quite long, this album never seems to stagnate. The music is in flux, yet never afraid to go into an improvisational mode in some place, yet moving away from that before it gets stale. The minutes fly by as you listen, get a little lost and then find yourself transported somewhere else entirely before you know it. The music runs smoothly most of the time, but the progressive elements are definitely abundant in this album, and when I say it runs smoothly, the shifts between sub-sections are handled like everything is running naturally. Anyway, I hope that makes sense. This is one of the best psychedelic/space rock albums I've heard this year, and that is because of the amount of depth and variation that exists in this album. Yep, gotta give it 5 stars. I love it!

Pyramidal has made their most progressive album here with this new one. Their first recordings were extended jams with improvisations, this one is more structured while the band still stretch their song for a long time. It could be heavy, raw and also light in some place with some sax, violin, and almost no vocals. The guitar work will get you hooked with some hypnotic riffs. The overall atmosphere is intense, the rhythm section solid. Their influences are from the '60s, 70's psychedelic space rock with some stoner rock and on the last track a clear reference to Black Sabbath. They simply don't need too many notes to grab the listener, just the right one repeated to make sure you are getting on a long trip and take the time to enjoy the ride. The songs have some mood changes that take your breath away and transport you to another part of the world, see "Creatures of the Ancient World". The album ends with an intense 14 minutes epic where you can only want to push the repeat button. I don't listen to a lot of psychedelic prog rock albums, but this one is special, I have never listened to anything of that quality.

I like to access progarchives to know what new values ​​are in the market in order to get new discs for my collection. When I read the list of tops of 2019, I found this Psychedelic and Space Rock band. In the very beginning, it seems promising. Also the reviews are good. However, as I listen to this album, my expectations are changing step by step. Pyramidal is a work made of 6 tracks. At first I like the proposal. His first song seems attractive, but over the time it is only a proposal with a King Crimson sound, but of a lower level. The saxophone has a classic sound (quite academic) away from the jazzy or rocky sound we are used to. In other words, 9 minutes of good intentions, but anchored in a harmonic structure that does not go anywhere. His second track begins in the same way as the previous one, that is, with a hypnotic use of musical elements, revolving around them on and on. "Unconscious Oscillations", the third title, features the same fault as the previous tracks. The last two songs delve into the same techniques, harmonies and timbre. All in all, the compositional formula is repeated again and again without offering anything new, which causes boredom and a deep exhaustion. On the other hand, production, even though it is self-produced, lacks very basic aspects such as the clarity of the planes, the clip of certain frequencies that produces quite a dark sound, and drums that sometimes remains of a rehearsal environment. If this band want to evolve, they must improve all these aspects.

Pyramidal is a Spanish band that practices a certain psychedelia and minimalism not in the sense of Glass or Nyman, of course. His last work, with homonymous title, consists of six tracks of extensive duration, especially the last one that almost doubles any of the others. The production is not amater, but neither is it professional. This detail makes the sound in general uniform, with few incursions into more daring and creative mixes. This has a very monotonous sound throughout the album. As for the songs, they are practically instrumental, since the scarce presence of voices invites us to think that they are treated as one more color. The compositions, in their musical structure, are usually based on short harmonic loops that are repeated over and over again. Along every track, there are interventions without a clear relationship between them; they generate environments or fragments in an expressionist style. Perhaps what I like the least about this album, and its particular style, is the trip to nowhere. The tonal keys are only a few within a composition and the whole work, which makes you want to skip the tracks quickly from one to another to try to discover something new. As much as they insist, the longest composition features the same deficiencies. Anyway, I think this album can work better as environmental music to create a hypnotic sensation than in an active listening. On this album, all of this may be understandable, but on a future work the band will have to propose something else.

If there's one thing the current progressive rock scene does not lack, it's mostly-instrumental stoner metal acts which bill themselves as "progressive" despite lacking any real musical adventurousness. An upsetting number of bands regularly release albums full of uninteresting 15-minute heavy blues jams and label it as "space rock" or "progressive rock". Thankfully, Pyramidal are not one of those acts. They lean heavily on early Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath influences, like many of those aforementioned stoner acts, but Pyramidal couple those influence with more daring jazz, krautrock, and even zeuhl influences.

Pyramidal is a band that's been on my radar for a while, and with the release of their self-titled fourth studio album, I'm pleased to find that they've hit a new high in their songwriting and instrumental skill. In addition to the core band members, the group brought in a few guests to contribute saxophone, violin, and synthesizers. This is doubtless their most ambitious, progressive release to date.

The album opens dreamily, with "Visions of an Astral Journey" beginning with soft, echoing guitars and smooth saxophone. The saxophone eventually establishes a weird, honking, descending riff that escalates into something jazzy I might expect of the Italian progressive rock scene. The aggression with which the saxophone is eventually used harkens back to some of the best and strangest moments from bands like King Crimson and Van der Graaf Generator.

"Creatures of the Ancient World" launches directly into an odd, metallic riff. When the intensity eventually breaks, violins crop up, imparting a Middle Eastern flavor to the calmer sections of this piece. The sparse vocals are drenched in reverb, further adding to the expansive, astral feeling. Around the midway point, the song takes another sharp left turn, diving headlong into a driving guitar solo. The Middle Eastern theme reemerges in this charged-up section, and saxophone makes an appearance as well, adding some complementary impact and crunch to the guitars.

"Unconscious Oscillations" is the shortest?and weirdest?song on the album. A mere three minutes long, it's full of rising and falling synth drones, sax noodling, unusual rhythmic patterns, and whispered vocals. It doesn't stand on its own very well, but taken in the context of the album, it's a pleasant breath of air.

It's on "Digital Madness" where Pyramidal's Hawkwind influences are most obvious. Much of the song keeps its tempo up and is full of effects-laden guitar strumming. On past releases, such influences were much more apparent throughout. The fact that it took this long for these influences to come to the forefront is a testament to the band's efforts to diversify their sound. Some folk flavors appear here, as well. The vocal lines have a distinctive Moorish flavor, and there are a few other melodic flashes. Such flourishes may be attributable to the band's hometown, in the south of Spain. (As I've previously mentioned, this region has drawn a lot of its artistic DNA from Spain's Islamic period.)

"Alussa Infinity", the closing, 14-minute track, opens immediately with some high-energy guitarwork, but it's when the band slows down that the music stands out more. They meditate on a riff which utilizes the Devil's Tritone, alternating with a deliberate-yet-bouncing, palm-muted guitar line. Pyramidal once again show their adaptability and willingness to make hairpin turns at a moment's notice when they launch into some blazing tremolo picking. With their layers of guitar effects, it's like some sort of cosmic black metal. A grand, ascending riff becomes the focus not long afterward, topped with twinkling synthesizer embellishments and a brief violin solo.

Pyramidal covers a lot of ground, which is a very good thing in this case. Oftentimes, bands in a similar mold to these guys will extend their soloing to near-interminable lengths, and the song structures are usually unrefined and muddled. It's clear that Pyramidal put a great amount of effort into composing the songs presented here. They're a diverse, varied bunch of recordings that demonstrate a strong knack for melody, and they do not overstay their welcome.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2019/04/29/album-review-pyramidal-pyramidal/