These New Puritans – Beat Pyramid
The back sleeve of “Beat Pyramid” has to be one of the strangest I have come across in awhile. The numbering starts at track 15 and then on the right side of each track appears to be the name in English and in Arabic. Aesthetics, aside “Beat Pyramid” at times has trouble finding an identity but when it comes down to it they sound a lot like Wire meets Shellac with a touch of The Rakes charm and charisma. The album looks long at first with its mighty fifteen tracks but it goes by rather swiftly do to the fact of a few sound bites pop in like the pointless track 12 “4” that is seven seconds of nothing. The first and last tracks are little snips that are broken and half and reversed.
The album gives you a lot of looks and angles. A track like “Elvis” which, is the current single and easily the most marketable song here has one hell of a solid bass line. It has some really weird lyrics about Elvis I would guess. Then you have a song like “£4” that basically just has the young singer repeating the same line “£4” over and over again. I never want to hear this song ever again. “Colours” is a very rhythmic song with a lot of bass and almost tribal like drums and it builds up nicely into a frantic little whirlwind. “Navigate-Colours” seems to just be a pointless reprise of the track “Colours.” “En Papier” still pops out at you with its big jump around chorus and somehow singable hook. The song musically is one of the most interesting on the album with a lot of changes and some weird noises which tend to make a lot of things better somehow.
The band have a lot of good moments here, there seems to be more style over substance at times. If we knock out both songs with 4 in the title and that other one H it starts to be a little more cohesive as an album. The tracks like “C. 16th” “En Papier” and “Numerology” make this one worth looking into at all. I love how clearly bands like Wire and The Fall were heavily influenced on the band and we need more of that. But, the high moments out weigh the low by a lot and “Infinity Ytinifni” will get a lot of play around here. I have a feeling the bands next album could be something monumental.
By John Siwicki
