The Alan Parsons Project
Pyramid

THE REVIEW

"Pyramid... the last remaining wonder of the ancient world."
The brief introduction to this concept, contained in the booklet, ends like this:
"Pyramid, the last wonder of the ancient world".

It is 1978 and Arista released this new concept of that "project" which at the beginning of its career had launched into avant-garde experimentation, also being the first in history to use a vocoder, an instrument that distorts the human voice. Calling it a "group" would actually be incorrect, for the Alan Parsons Project was already bizarre in itself, breaking the standard of a group, the "bass - drums - guitar" triangle: they did have a guitarist, a drummer, and a bassist, but they were followed by a remarkable orchestra directed by a genius such as Andrew Powell.

Alan Parsons in the guise of a jack-of-all-trades (Synths, backing vocals, production..) and Eric Woolfson as lyricist/singer. This concept album, well, is perhaps the clearest and "purest" of the Parsonsian discography and is based on a single concept "What ascends, then falls". This expression is rendered in the preface to the second track "What goes up...". The record opens with the instrumental "Voyager", a theme that will be resumed later in the next album "Eye in the Sky", opening on a simple arpeggio from which other intertwining threads are born, to which bass and drums, percussion, and sound effects are added. Just as in the group's first album "Tales Of Mystery And Imagination: Edgar Allan Poe", the first short instrumental, having reached its peak, descends, leaving only a simple bass line and percussion. On this is based the already mentioned "What Goes Up...". This song could summarize the entire album well, "What goes up, must come down": there are no prayers, no destiny, no possibility, everything that is possible can do, "even a miracle", must fall. Always. A quick reprise of the theme of "Voyager" and a vibrato close the song. Woolfson reaches the vocals and lifts, hesitantly, the famous "The Eagle Will Rise Again": the message of the song is as sad and pessimistic as the previous one, the days of life are like grains of sand falling from the hands at the command of the wind. At one point the narrator rebels against his useless condition and screams, shouts "Let me see the light, let me be the light!". But there is nothing to be done. The relentless passage of time will cover his life as well. A small interlude, "One More River", which aims to break a little the chain of pessimism created by this album. However, it emphasizes the concepts, don't look back because there is another river, another bridge. Don't get distracted. Distant bell tolls and a fragile flute melody rise among the scorching sun. A loud noise, then the endless march. Well, what to say, "In the Laps Of Gods" brings to mind the times of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt and almost, closing your eyes, you can see rows and rows of slaves carrying huge boulders to build the grandiose monument that will bring prestige to the sovereign for millennia to come. Suddenly the music stops, and an obsessive and uneven bass theme enters, initially hesitant, then continuous and pounding. The monument is finished, perhaps, and the people pay homage to the supreme ruler, the choir rises, grandiose, majestic. Hail to the King, Praise to the King And glory to His name forever. Gloria, Hosanna! a furious theme of strings that chase each other in a crescendo of choirs and those of trumpets, the roar of the French horns concludes the piece which, in my opinion, is the most beautiful and grandiose of the concept.

And so, we completely change, contrary to those who say that Alan Parsons' music is monotonous, from the great splendors of the Egyptian empire, we move to the schizophrenia of a poor man for pyramids. He sees them everywhere, poor devil, in every place, they're ruining him as if it were a drug. He believes they help him live, eat, drink, and sleep better, he thinks they help him cultivate delightful things. By now his library is crammed with essays on the Mayans, and his pajamas offer a panorama of the pyramids of Giza. He realizes that all he has gained from it is a sharp pain in the neck and a shrill and continuous barking. He is now crazy, losing his mind, and exclaims "all you need is a pyramid!". This masterpiece of a song ends and immediately the atmosphere (Pyramidal, I would say) transforms into a crescendo of synthesizers and muffled drums in a futuristic setting of space research and cosmic adventures. "Hyper Gamma Spaces" is the ideal end of this concept and could give a hope that might counter the pessimism at the beginning: after all there's always the future, tomorrow is another day, and... who knows. Perhaps we will be able to reclaim the lost wonders. It would be the ideal ending, all beautiful and serene! Indeed, let's throw ourselves into the future, let's place ourselves in the hands of science. But no, Woolfson cannot forget that after all the wonders of Egypt, the space travels, the inner journeys, the madness, the death of time, after all that there is only a man closed in on himself, there remains only an almost vegetable, a shadow of the long-forgotten presence of a single individual.

The present is the present, there is no past and no future, there are no rows of slaves near the pyramid and there are no extraordinary journeys in the cosmos, but only a man, immersed in his solitude, flattened by the incessant passage of time, crushed, oppressed, killed, psychologically assassinated. He seems to appeal in prayer to everything that has passed, to everything that happened before: "Look at me now, a shadow of the man I used to be. Look through my eyes and through the years Of loneliness you'll see. In the shadow of a lonely, lonely man, I can see myself!" "Look at me now, a shadow of the man I once was. Look through my eyes and the years of loneliness that you will see. In the shadow of a desperately lonely man, I can see myself!"...

I think the inner cover of the LP well reflects this idea. There are sarcophagi, symbols, schemes, geometric operations, algebraic calculations, analysis of heartbeats, wires, cables, creepy bent razor blades, in the background the immense pyramids, flying saucers, cold space equipment. At the bottom right, a desperate half-figure man, shrunken, covers his eyes with his hands, alone, abandoned, flattened. The history and the despair that transpired from it have destroyed him. He turns against his creator.