ALBUM REVIEW: Beyond Borders Of Time – Pyramid
Sitting along the banks of the graciously flowing Pegnitz river, in the depths of Bavaria, lies Nuremberg. Since the middle ages the city has been an early centre of humanism, science, printing and mechanical invention, as well as contributing a large amount to astronomy. With all this knowledge flying around it is an interesting place to be inspired, especially when it comes to creating mind-expanding instrumental heavy psych that transports you to the furthest reaches of the universe.
Nuremberg natives PYRAMID do just that. Making their way onto the scene in 2019 with their debut album Mind Maze, the trio of Michael Kümpflein (bass/synths), Lukas Schomann (drums) and Shane Saban (guitar) create captivating interstellar soundscapes that transport you to another world. Moulding themselves out of the sounds of MONKEY3, YAWNING MAN and fellow countrymen MY SLEEPING KARMA, the band’s new album Beyond Borders Of Time sees them harness their potential and venture further than they have before creatively.
Beyond Borders Of Time is an ornate weaving of stoner, psychedelia and progressive instrumental rock, finely crafted so that it unfolds gracefully, revealing its intricate layers. It is a gentle journey through the wavy folds of time and space. As a result, you find yourself completely immersed in the peaceful vibe of this album. Even though there are some big riffs in there and various momentum and tempo shifts, for the most part PYRAMID have created quite a meditative album. While you zone out of the real world, your imagination sees a kaleidoscope of colours and shimmering stars as you journey through various time warps and black holes. Beyond Borders Of Time is a full on, all-encompassing space journey.
Musically, it sounds like PYRAMID utilise modal scales to create different vibes to their songs. Some are dreamy, some are melancholic and some utilise the Middle Eastern sounding Phrygian scale to give you the impression that you’re travelling through an exotic landscape or discovering a new, mysterious world. This cinematic, compositional approach always lends itself well to this genre of music, it leaves a lot open to interpretation and each time you listen through you pick out new elements that you missed previously as well as a new perspective.
PYRAMID have crafted a plethora of luscious layers throughout Beyond Borders Of Time, building galactic sounding synths and processing the guitars through a perfectly tuned delay and reverb set up. There’s so much space to sit and ponder, your mind unrestricted by the monotony of every day life and allowed to just float blissfully through all of PYRAMID’s soundscapes, at one with the album’s ebb and flow.
The album opens up with TMM, a bluesy, psychedelic track that takes a leaf out of YAWNING MAN and Bob Balch’s book, establishing a theme and slowly building into a hypnotic riff fest that sets the tone for the album. As TMM fades into the second track Sunbeam, the album takes a funky, groovier turn. Sunbeam is an upbeat and dreamy track with catchy melodies and dynamic bass lines that moves between energetic psychedelic passages and mellow, flowery atmospheric sections. The album’s longest track Fainting brings together the main elements of the previous two tracks and imbues them with a sense of urgency. This is a much more prog rock leaning track and has some darker vibes to it, shifting between melancholic and angsty emotions to create a contrast in the middle of the album.
Interlude Petrichor sounds like a snippet from a sci-fi film and brings back the relaxing and hypnotic vibes before you venture into the second half of the album. Solarflare follows a similar formula to Sunbeam – upbeat and richly-layered with happy guitar melodies and warming synths. Krypta leans more into the fuzzier, bluesy side of PYRAMID’s sound, a swirling track of pitch-shifted guitar leads, snarling fuzz and a more direct rock approach. The album closes with Prototype, which for the most part is TMM part two. It ends the record exactly how it started, with heavy psychedelics and luscious synth layers that set you up for another listen through as if you’re now in a never-ending cycle of hypnotic music.
PYRAMID’s brand of stoner psychedelia and progressive instrumental rock is intricate and well thought out. The songs are well written and connect together perfectly to create a cohesive and ornate album. Ultimately though, Beyond Borders Of Time is a chill out album, a slice of escapism that allows you to unleash your imagination in a meditative state.
Rating: 7/10
Beyond Borders Of Time is set for release on March 22nd via Subsound Records.
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