GAUDI'S LEGACY

3.5 realy

Third album and aswell their swansong is a conceptual album issued in 2002 and named Gaudi's legacy. While is same in aproach as previous album, same complex arrangements, very good keybords, the sound is better for sure, is more fat and has a very solid drum sound, realy strong. So, the album is a concept about a spanish architect named Antonio Gaudi who lived between 1852-1926, his creations had a ghotic style, very strange and quite unique for thet period. The music fits perfectly with the lyrics, but this time the instrumental passages are lenghtier and greater in number, more then half of the album is instrumental. Complicated progressive metal passages, greta keybords fiting like gloves in guitar arrangements, good vocal parts, yet not great, still weakest point as on previous album, but not bad for sure. Many rhythmic changes, great druming very strong musicianship realy, one of the best prog metal bands from Spain for sure in this domain, yet very low treated and unknown. The melodic passages interludes very well with the complex ones, the ones who had some rough moemnst but yet very melodic and well performed. Another well played album in this fied that goes unnoticed by many listners, ok I understant that this band is to much influenced by DReam Theater but they don't sound bad at all, not a second. 3.-3.5 stars, I olike it together with previous one, two of the better albums from spanish prog metal scene.

This is the third album by prog mettalers Pyramid, and is a concept album based on the work of Antonio Gaudi Cornet (1852-1926), who according to my brief flick through the web was the leader of the Catalonia modern movement. He was an architect of great renown and many of his grand designs still exists in Spain, particularly in Barcelona where Pyramid hail from. Producing a concept album is always challenging, but in this instance they are trying to create one form of art based on another form of art, quite an undertaking.

This is quite unlike any other album that I have been listening to recently, while at the same time bringing together themes and styles that will be recognisable to many. It is progressive, while at the same time quite definitely hard rock, which means that they fit in the prog metal genre, or do they? This is a very technical band, with extremely complex guitar/keyboard interplay, which means that at times it is possible to imagine that one is listening to some new work by Steve Vai. There is the same fluidity, the same refusal to compromise to any ideals about what the music should sound like, yet at the same time making a lot of sense.

The second track is nearly twelve minutes long (but annoyingly fades out instead of finishing properly), and when Javier Cespedes is singing it is good strong melodic rock but the music switches and twists so that the listener wonders what is going to happen yet. Some songs are more commercial than others, but there is always the sense of expecting the unexpected. Easily one of the best Spanish albums I have heard in a long time.

Originally appeared in Feedback #70, Oct 02