REVIEW: PYRAMID - THE IMMACULATE LIE

 

PYRAMID - THE IMMACULATE LIE (Locomotive Music , 2000):

Track List: 1-Epilogue, 2-Hell Freezes Over, 3-Uthopia City, 4-Merciful Lies, 5-One of a Kind, 6-The Mastery of Flight, 7-Show Me, 8-Armageddon, 9-Virtual Superhuman, 10-The Prodigal Son

Pyramid is one of the most interesting bands from the Locomotive Music label: their music can be called progressive and because of the strength that their compositions have this is pure progressive metal. The album opens with a short piano instrumental called "Epilogue" before getting into "Hell Freezes Over with its complex riffs and changes (thumbs up for guitarist Tony Valles and keyboardist Javier Camps). The main influence for this band is obviously Dream theater (listen to the riff of "Hell Freezes Over" (3:32) that could have been extracted from "Images and Words". The main difference with the american band are the vocals from Javier Cespedes that sound really different from James La Brie´s (he made me remember of Toxik´s singer from the "World Circus" album) and the powerful guitar of Valles that is quite different from John Petrucci´s, even if they have a similar style. The songs in "The Immaculate Lie" are over five minutes long each one letting the musicians show all that they can do (specially on "Armageddon" that is almost fourteen minutes long with a lot of parts, changes and breaks). Excellent progressive band that I think in then future will find their identity and place in the progressive metal scene. Favorite tracks: "Uthopia Cry", "The Mastery of Flight" and "Armageddon". Contact: www.locomotivemusic.com