Photo by Vivian Bartell
Out this Friday on The Flenser, the new album from Pyramids is a daring study in genre synthesis. The band continues to push boundaries in both sound and aesthetic, blending jagged fragments of black metal and shoegaze as they have done since their influential 2008 debut.
With Pythagoras, Pyramids add unconventional layers of reggaeton and neoperreo to both voice and rhythm. Named after the ancient Greek philosopher, Pythagoras represents the band’s ongoing commitment to innovation, and the perpetual juxtaposition of the delicate and the devastating, embracing complex musical structures and rhythms that both challenge and captivate the listener. At the heart of the album lies an intricate balance between aggressive blast beats and the syncopated pulse of reggaeton’s signature dembow rhythm—a concept born from founder Rich Loren Balling’s own immersion in both extreme music and pop genres.
The album’s third single “Bones and Eggshells” arrives today. Rich Loren Balling says the song, “…plays on the edge of fate and forged reality — the inescapable reality of freedom of the will locking fingers with a world that overpowers, overrides, and overwrites our selves. The burden of freedom. The heart of moral experience. Bones and Eggshells captures most precisely the vision that we set out to achieve with Pythagoras. When I envisioned the organic relationship between the rhythmic pattern of reggaeton and the blast beat of black metal and its inherent ability to be a natural habitat for tremolo guitars and any gauzy extraneous washes of sound that might envelope the track, this is what I heard. This song also best presents the cadence of the Spanish vocals and their interplay with our existing vocal sound. Despite its strong representation of our end goal, we didn’t drop this song first, since the song gives no time at all to anticipate the amalgam of genres and can be a jarring first impression. But now that the cat is out of the bag with what we are doing on Pythagoras, I am proud to put this one on full display.”
The journey to Pythagoras began after the release of Pyramids‘ 2015 album A Northern Meadow (Profound Lore), a work that earned critical acclaim for taking what Pitchfork deemed “a beautiful mess” of its debut to a more focused, yet equally genre-defying, sound. The following nine years, Balling, along with original members Matthew Kelly, Matt Embree, and David Embree, ventured further into harsh noise before finding a link between the evolution of extreme music (think Black Sabbath to Darkthrone) where the intensity of genre keeps mounting until eventually it becomes blissful and harrowing, and in a move akin to palette cleansing, adopted an unexpected reverence for the innovation happening in pop music, specifically female Neoperreo and reggaeton artists such as Emjay, La Zowi, Six Sex, Bea Pelea, Karol G, and Rosalia. His newfound appreciation for the rhythm and intensity of reggaeton, particularly its organic ability to interplay with metal’s blast beats, laid the foundation for the distinctive sound of Pythagoras. Through this album, Pyramids introduces a dynamic fusion where global rhythms meet atmospheric shoegaze textures, all with the aggression of a black metal sensibility at its core.
Pythagoras is not just a sonic evolution—it is an exploration of the cycles of musical extremes. Balling believes that genres, like metal, evolve towards greater intensity until they reach a point of such sonic density and noise that they return to something beautifully melodic and transcendent. This concept is reflected in the album’s dense, layered compositions and its ability to both overwhelm and soothe the listener. The album’s rhythm is a complex mathematical interplay, where the familiar blast beat and pounding dembow rhythm intersect, creating a sound that is both chaotic and hypnotic.
To bring the album’s vision to life, Pyramids enlisted vocalist Emy Smith, whose neoperreo-influenced vocals add a haunting, ethereal layer to the dense soundscape. The album’s cover art, created by Miami-based nail artist Kro Vargas (aka Krocaine), further captures the ominous yet captivating essence of the music, hinting at the fusion of genres and cultures that defines Pythagoras.
With Pythagoras, Pyramids are once again poised to redefine the future of extreme music. As one of the most forward-thinking forces in contemporary music, the band continues to forge a path that transcends genre and time. Their unique blend of delicate beauty and devastating intensity invites listeners to explore a world of sound that is both expansive and claustrophobic, suspended between warmth and emptiness. Pythagoras is not just an album; it is a statement—a daring, innovative work that challenges convention and leads the listener through the unknown into new realms of sonic possibility.
