The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Third World Pyramid

While listening to Third World Pyramid, my attention occasionally drifted, and I found myself wondering which of the many Brian Jonestown Massacre records I had in my ears.

There is nothing wrong with this album. After the successful ethno-mystical phase of Aufheben and Revelation, and the much less exciting interlude of Musique de film imaginé, they began a return to a more classic sound with Mini Album Thingy Wingy and Third World Pyramid: one album with Brian Jones on the cover and another with the Spacemen 3 symbol. That the Rolling Stones and Spacemen 3 were the guiding spirits of Anton Newcombe was already clear to his kindergarten teachers. I don't remember the names and faces of my teachers, but I'm sure they also know that Newcombe has never tried to reinvent the wheel, only to make it spin as His Satanic Majesty demands. And the wheel has always spun to perfection, from the ancestral demos of Pol-Pot's Pleasure Penthouse to the five hundred videos that Anton now uploads to YouTube with alarming frequency.

Third World Pyramid is just another record from our band: out of focus, out of time, and out of fashion. All things that shouldn't concern anyone listening to Brian Jonestown Massacre, because this is what they have always done.

I know what to expect from Newcombe, and I'm happy because he's still a champion at his craft.

I know the Hawaiian turn of our band might never come, so I'm not that happy; but you can't have everything in life, and I usually get very little.

I know what not to expect because if I were looking for innovation, focus, formal precision, expressive urgency, coolness, hype, keeping-up-with-the-times, and boring things from Fracussi or Pitchfork, then I would have been listening to the wrong band for more than twenty years.

And if I were so naive, I would have been better off burning my neurons with acid when I was in kindergarten.