The Ressurection of Black Pyramid on The Paths of Time are Vast

Last month, the night before the deadline to post the April Doom Charts, I had a nightmare, a horrible dream in which I forgot to have Black Pyramid’s latest album on the list. It’s usually a forgivable sin of omission. It’s happened before, and it’s bound to happen again. There are just too many albums coming out in any given month to nail them all.

But this is Black Pyramid…

It turns out I jumped the gun a bit, and put a May release on the April list. I wonder where it will wind up this Month?

Nostalgia Trippin’ Time

Black Pyramid

This isn’t one of those “things were better in the good old days” posts like you see all the time on YouTube and a few mainstream magazines. But some perspective is in order.

Around 2009/2010, most of the people I knew in this scene rightfully expected Black Pyramid to be one of the greatest bands, ever. They were maybe one album away from being legend. I can’t exaggerate how hard that first Black Pyramid hit. It was like every possible aspect of the band: the songs, the sound, the performances were in a different league. The second album, Black Pyramid II, hit as hard. The songs got longer and more ambitious, the writing even tighter.

And then…done! Andy Beresky, for his own reasons, had to get the fuck out. I’ve read a lot of commentary and speculation about his departure, but I don’t know a damn thing. It’s his story to tell, and if I’m lucky, he’ll join us on our little channel and share a bit about it. But unless that happens, I’m leaving it alone.

A third album, Adversarial, tried to keep things going. Honestly, it’s a damn fine album in a lot of ways, and Daryl Shepard is no joke. But he’s also no Andy Beresky. It’s no one’s fault, it’s just the way it is. Black Pyramid went the way of hundreds of other bands, and sometimes getting into a Stoner/Doom band is a bit like falling in love with a Netflix series: there’s no guarantee what there will be a next season, no matter how awesome it is.

Black Pyramid is Resurrected on The Paths of Time are Vast

I might put a few noses out of joint, but I think that the term “Sabbath Worship” is one of the most over-used tropes in music journalism. Any comparison to Black Sabbath is relatively suspect, as it’s usually a short-cut for those in the more mainstream scene to make a point they don’t entirely understand. Most may disagree, but in my head, “Sabbath Worship” implies a basic approach to sound, songwriting, and lyrical content. Having a singer who sounds like Ozzy isn’t “Sabbath Worship” anymore than playing an overdriven guitar is. That would be “Ozzy” or “Iommi Worship” (which may be the second most over-used trope.)

I bring this up because I think Black Pyramid is a spiritual successor to Black Sabbath, and one of the very few. Each song contains a total commitment to the song, not just the heavy riff or vocal delivery. Bassist Eric Beaudry is using pentatonics, arpeggios and specific rhythms to support the song, lay a foundation under the guitars, lock-in with Andy Kivelea’s drums AND present a character and approach distinctly his own. Another bassist that comes to mind is Scott Reeder, especially on Kyuss’s Welcome to Sky Valley.

Andy Kivelea follows suit, and if he doesn’t take too many pages from Bill Ward’s or Lee Kerlsake’s (Uriah Heep) songbooks, he’s definitely not in “timekeeper” mode throughout the album, and has the ability to propel the various twists and turns fluidly and effortlessly. And he does so with the same deft old-school power of skin bashers like Cozy Powell and ohter first-generation drummers.

There’s one more aspect to “Sabbath Worship” that’s worth mentioning, and that’s Black Sabbath’s ability to not sound the same from album to album, and in some cases song-to-song. Black Pyramid, as a band, has a deep reservoir of sounds, tricks, and experimentation that goes beyond the average “three-chord” wonder reputation that Stoner/Doom has in the metal scene. A reputation, again, perpetuated by lazy writers and editors who can’t be bothered to take the time to listen, learn, and absorb.

The Paths of Time Are Vast defies generic descriptions of any kind. This is an exceptionally powerful album, and Black Pyramid is clearly up to the task. None of the concepts are above their ability to play, and their concepts are as vast as the title suggests. I can’t help but think that the Universe insisted that this album be made: exactly when, how, and why seems like an epic tale I’ll never get tired of hearing.

The Tale of the Quantum Phoenix.

One thing some of us try to avoid on Clean and Sober Stoner is a song-by-song account. Blake Carrera can pull it off because…he’s Blake Carrera.

I want to tease you with one song, and let you judge the rest…

I suspect that there’s more to album closer, Quantum Phoenix, than a casual glimpse can reveal. I gotta say, up to this point, Black Pyramid has delivered an epic album that I’m sure is going to add to their legend. But this song, at nearly 16 minutes of length, is the coup de grace I didn’t know I needed.

The lyrics, dealing with coming back through the flames, speaks obliquely to Black Pyramid’s own resurrection. But it’s the awe-inducing, jaw-dropping perfection of band that gives the exclamation point at the end of this massive album. This is ferocious stuff, with the opening psychedelic effects and solemn, sonorous bass giving fair notice that we’re in for a freaking ride.

For me, this is the true extremeness of Doom. Low, slow to the point of nodding off, only to be hit in the gut again and again as the intensity builds up to the point of ecstatic abandon. Reverend Fuzzcut sums it up perfectly in his short review on the Black Pyramid Bandcamp site:

This record stands as a monument to what three men can do with a little bit of wood, metal, electricity, and a metric-shit-ton of volume. I was expecting Black Pyramid to come out swinging and I’ve liked this band for quite some time, but I was not prepared for just how much their song craft has broadened. This is Stoner-Doom-heavy psych at its absolute peak. There is no higher mountaintop to crest. All hail the mighty neck pickup and bask in the fragrant incense of speaker cones melting.💚🤘🏻🍄💜

-Reverend Fuzzcut

Indeed.

The most beautiful thing about Quantum Phoenix is that it’s not until 7:15 into the song that the heat starts to approach the boiling point. Stefan Koglek from Colour Haze may be the master of lyrical guitar playing in the more laid-back world of Heavy Psych/Stoner, but Andy is making a compelling case that he’s the master of Doom lyricism and expression on guitar, along with Mike Scheidt of YOB.

What makes Black Pyramid truly great though happens at the 10:52 mark, when the song takes another shift. Any sane and rational band would end it there, drop the mic and leave it at that. But these guys aren’t sane, or rational, and they have MORE TO SAY! If I’m right about the first 10 minutes being Andy’s point of view, this is where the rest of band is takes to a whole other plane of existence. I am left drenched and lifeless as these guys hammer out some of the most intense flourishes this side of The Great Cessation or Elder’s Blind.

The Paths of Time Are Vast, against all probability and even possibility, plants Black Pyramid at the summit of All that is Doom. And eff the “Sabbath” worship hype. These guys can be spoken in the same breath as YOB, Acid King, and Elder as the best possible example of what Doom, as an art form, can accomplish.

PS: Our Linktree is about to get bigger…

https://linktr.ee/cleanandsoberstoner