PYRAMID

'Pyramid' is the third consecutive album by the Alan Parsons Project, released in 1978 following the successful 'Tales' and 'I Robot', and while this very loose concept album is quite a decently sounding one, unlike the releases preceding it, is bereft of any grand ideas. Following the formula established on 'I Robot', the band's third LP is a song-oriented collection that sees Parsons and Wolfson exploring the possibilities of studio recording even further, with the former becoming even more occupied with engineering and mixing duties, producing an elegant album that features several straightforward pop/rock tunes as well as a few lovely instrumentals, although relatively less sophisticated and diverse than the music on 'I Robot', for example.

Having the least inspiring beginning of all the classis APP releases, the music on 'Pyramid' gets progressively better as the albums moves towards the middle, yet the sounds on here are quite mellow, often melancholic and soft, occasionally anticipating some of the new wave explorations about to enter the world of rock just a few years later, at times exhibiting jazz-inspired rhythms. The cast of vocalists this time around is rather good, the layers of synths do provide for a spacey atmosphere and even if there is no technical playing, the production of 'Pyramid' is actually stellar. Songs like 'One More River', 'In the Lap of the Gods', 'Hyper-Gamma-Spaces' and 'Shadow of a Lonely Man' reveal the textured and tranquilizing nature of the album, which remains a fine but less engaging entry of this catalogue, an album that could have been more intriguing had it had some of the versatility of 'I Robot' or the experimental nuances of 'Tales'.