CRUSTCAKE PICKS - NEW CAKE IN THE OVEN: PYRAMIDS WITH NADJA'S S/T

by Andrew Wilhelm (Denver)

Listen: Pyramids with Nadja - S/T [Stream]

Denton, Texas' Pyramids and Toronto's Nadja are both often accurately described as "lush," though the bands arrive at that point through entirely different vessels. Pyramids, drawing heavily from dream pop, are more concise with their songs. They also experiment with electronic elements and some rather Transilvanian Hunger-like drum bursts. Najda are much more drawn out, using ambient music as a compositional style for a heavily-layered take on metal. Most of their records (and they've got an extensive discography) follow this template, with subtle differences between each, a rather Motörhead-ish quality despite the fact that Lemmy would balk at writing a seven-minute song, much less a 17-minute one. Both bands can either sound delicately warm or punishingly cold, but Nadja is more explicit with those distinctions, while in Pyramids, those feelings tend to ebb and flow throughout the songs.

So what would happen if the two got together?



Nadja (above) essentially stretches out Pyramids on the bands' debut collaboration. Pyramids still have their brittle melodies, kraut electronics and ear for dynamics, just elongated by Nadja's song lengths. So do their guts spill out and make a dreadful mess of things from being stretched so far? Quite the opposite: the bands meld together quite well. Pyramids interject a percussive feel to these songs, and given that Nadja are not known for their drum work, this contribution is invaluable. This is noticeable on the opener "Into the Silent Waves," with its occasional lo-fi, low-rumble, war march drums breaking up the lull in the middle of the track. The album drifts, no doubt, but at least there's a few bumps to make your inner ascension (or declension, depending on how you roll) a more interesting ride.

Both bands also tend to put out a mind-fucker here and there, and the middle two tracks, "Another War" and the 21-minute epic "The Sound of Ice and Grass," are certainly mind-fuckers. "War" features sections of broken piano and slightly out-of-tune indie singing that forces you to let your guard down once you've become accustomed to the drone. In fact, the drone is more like a battle and the piano parts are like the lucid moments when the gunfire stops. "Ice" gradually shifts from lonely piano to unsettling guitar drone, then fades out with some Fennesz-esque glitch and soft shrieks of feedback. Subtlety does not equal pussyfooting here.



The most "metal" track on here would be the closer, "An Angel Was Heard to Cry Over the City of Rome." Alternating between a surging beat and other-worldly drone, it's this track where each band's style is most recognizable, yet it's hardly a botched skin graft. Like all the tracks, it possesses a semi-conscious narrative: this one being akin to fading in and out of witnessing total destruction. Whether that destruction is yourself, "Rome," or a loved one, well, it is what you make of it. Noise, ambiance, charging drums, drone, delicateness - they all come together in this track. An immensely heartfelt closer, bar none.

Usually in collaborations, there tends to be an overpowering force rather than a harmonic convergence between collaborators. Pyramids with Nadja is refreshingly the latter. Balancing the delicate and the overbearing is quite difficult, but both bands are able to do it successfully on this album. Recommended.