The Pyramids – S/T

Incredibly the primal howls on Derdang Derdang didn’t satisfy Sam Windett or Mark Cleveland enough. During the Derdang Derdang recording they decided to find the time to build a studio in a barn and bash out this sonic Golem

Incredibly the primal howls on Derdang Derdang didn’t satisfy Sam Windett or Mark Cleveland enough. During the Derdang Derdang recording they decided to find the time to build a studio in a barn and bash out this sonic Golem

The Pyramids – S/T

http://www.dominorecordco.com/ http://www.munichrecords.com/ www.myspace.com/pyramidy

 

Waagh! It’s the Archies under another name! Well, two of them at least. Incredibly the primal howls on Derdang Derdang didn’t satisfy Sam Windett or Mark Cleveland enough. During the Derdang Derdang recording they decided to find the time to build a studio in a barn and bash out this sonic Golem, enthralled by a love of garage rock in its purest and most desperate form. Simply put, if you can’t get Black Monk Time off your stereo, you’ll bloody love this. The opener Pyramidy is a gothic incantation, and following that is a true stoner classic, A White Disc of Sun. Why it reminds me of very, very early Cramps bootlegs, (or Pere Ubu playing in a deserted Victorian swimming pool) is anyone’s guess.

 

Where they summoned the Behemoth that is Piblokoto from is again, anyone’s guess. The lyrics are spooky as hell too and that morose, stoned guitar break amidships sounds like the ghost of Hartmut Enke banging on the door, demanding to be let in. Shit this is up there with Death Trip… Hunch Your Body Love Somebody is a raging howl; Windett has that peculiar ability to warble in a very angry way, it’s like he’s pretending he’s in Yeti-era Amon Duul 2. Fuck me, if Lothar Meid could hear this… Festoons is a sharp, jangly screech whereas the laughingly named Guitar Star is the unexpected quiet interlude in all this tumult. For a good three minutes we get a lazy strum played out for effect over a sparse background, it’s like the gaps Neu! left in their LPs. A Gala in the Harbour of Your Heart returns us to garage land, skipping round a bonfire of Electric Prunes records; it’s an unlikely disco classic and jigs about in a jerky polka for a good five minutes.

 

Phew! Three tracks to go… Empty Yourself is a short jangle very much in the style of  GBV outtake. Manitou, by contrast is a slumb’rous beastie dragging itself painfully along the linoleum of your kitchen floor. I love it as it’s such a stoned slob fest. Banishing any slothfulness is Glue You, an angry swirl of guitar noise somehow shoehorned into a song structure.

 

Bloody heck, what is there not to praise here? Suffice to say, it’s a fabulous release full of brilliant and memorable moments. Check it out.

 

Words: Richard Foster