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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Mayan panoramas on my pyramid pajamas, April 10, 2008
The third Alan Parsons Project album was kind of lost in the middle of his Sci-Fi progressive epic I Robot and the hits that started coming once he released Eve. It is one of the few APP albums to not notch a top 40 single. It's also the last of his truly old-school free-from FM Radio rock albums, playing heavily with the instrumentations and the concept.
For this album, it was the Pyramid Craze and the fascination with King Tut that informed the songs. The unconventional instrumentation of "In The Lap Of The Gods" was the last time Parsons would enter into that kind of symphonic lustre, and APP's trademark instrumental style makes two appearances with "Hyper Gamma Spaces" and "Voyager." The terrific ballads drop in with "Shadow of a Lonely Man" and Colin Blunstone's well sung "The Eagle Will Rise Again."
The thematic leaning towards making monuments to yourself ("What Goes Up" and "You Can't Take it With You") make for intriguing, thoughtful songs, while the goofy "Pyramania" is the song that actually does fiddle around with the Pyramid theme (and may be the most humorous thing APP ever recorded) the most. But the main theme of the album, man's quest for immortality, is the over-riding purpose of the songs. Be it our desires and doubts toward be the biggest and most noticed ("If all things will fall, why build a miracle at all?") to our own refusal to acknowledge our folly ("The last thing of all that was on my mind was the close at the end of the show" from "Shadow of a Lonely Man"), this was the last Alan Parsons Project to really touch me emotionally. While future and more popular albums (Eye in the Sky, Turn of a Friendly Card) are still good albums overall, they were more focused on a glossy and streamlined sound. "Pyramid" was a grandiose goodbye to the 70's, and still holds a special place in my CD collection.
So where's the remaster, already?
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
pyramid, January 14, 2009
Pyramid should bore me to tears because Alan Parsons Project should bore me to tears. This should be the most boring band in the world to me. They should be a band that writes music to help me fall asleep. They should be pleasant background music and nothing more. However, they're NONE of those things.
Alan Parsons Project, while sounding a LOT like Pink Floyd on several occasions as far as atmosphere and songwriting goes, manages to escape the boredom feeling most similar artists fall victim to and somehow, perhaps with amazing talent and an ability to write vocal melodies, Alan Parsons is quite the underrated musician. In fact, he's much more underrated these days, in a world where people insist on remembering Pink Floyd and forgetting the imitators. Nonsense.
Pyramid isn't quite as good as I Robot in my opinion because the songwriting takes one step back. However, one step back isn't exactly breaking your mothers back, har har. I mean, one step back isn't exactly a MAJOR step back. I really enjoy just about everything on Pyramid. It's *always* important for a band like this to remember to write solid vocal melodies and luckily the band remembered to do so for this release.
The album even ends on a pretty sad note. Listen to the lyrics on "Shadow of a Lonely Man" and you get the feeling someone in the band was seriously depressed. Maybe not, but it sure sounds that way. "One More River" sounds like Al Stewart to me. "Pyramania" is just flat out awesome. I remember this song as a small child. The memories never escaped my mind! It's like carnival music with a really really high atmosphere. What a swirly little melody it has though!
That one instrumental near the end is quite melodic and enough to declare it the best song on the album with its intense outerspace flow and feel. The other instrumental is more about pyramid-related atmosphere with a slow, quiet build-up, but it's good too!
Overall this is another solid one ladies and gentlemen. Pick it up soon.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very Good Album, January 13, 2009
This is the third album by The Alan Parsons Project, and the theme is obviously pyramids, or more loosely, mortality and the finiteness of life. This album is a roller coaster of uplifting and somber songs, and joins the previous two APP albums with orchestration and thoughtful lyrics.
1. Voyager (Instrumental) ****
2. What Goes Up... ****
3. The Eagle Will Rise Again ***1/2
4. One More River ****1/2
5. Can't Take It with You ****
6. In the Lap of the Gods ***1/2
7. Pyramania ***
8. Hyper-Gamma-Spaces ****
9. Shadow of a Lonely Man *****
The final track "Shadow of a Lonely Man" stands out on this album, and is truly wonderful. The sound of the song goes perfectly with the lyrics. "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." It doesn't get anymore gut-wrenching than this to make you step back and evaluate where you are heading.
The Alan Parsons Project albums have been very important to me, and I discovered them during a very dark period in my young adult life. The thoughtful lyrics and powerful melodies shook me up enough to make me take a good look at where I was going, and to make some necessary changes. Music has the power to move people, and this is evident in the music of Alan Parsons, Eric Woolfson, and friends. Very good album.
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by The Alan Parsons Project 
