Black Tempel Pyrämid: Infinite Tombs – “a five-dimensional wall of sound”

Black Tempel Pyrämid is an experimental collective from Fort Collins, Colorado, spearheaded by one, Patrick R. Pärk.

If music was artillery, then Black Tempel Pyrämid may just be the most potent weapon; their dead-eyed krautrock-inspired rushes of noise doing their best to split the soul.

Infinite Tombs is the band’s latest release and their eighth in 12 months. Sure, not Matt Christensen standards, however Black Tempel Pyrämid are yet another artist who have crushed the boundaries of the blow-ins, the middlemen, and the johnny-come-lateltys, by recording music and getting it the fuck out there.

And that’s what Infinite Tombs feels like. Recorded in March last year prior to the COVID pandemic, there are waves of anger that would have destroyed the soul had they not been emitted into this strange, strange world. Pandemic Blues is a shining example; a barrel of noise where krautrock and noise rock collide in stunning fashion.

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Songs like opener, Floating Bone and later with Soft Fear are dystopian noise rock blasts, containing drones that make Spaceman 3 sound like the exponents of nursery rhymes.

The title track is a five-dimensional wall of sound, lending itself to the fringes of krautrock but with a little more acid in the fruit punch; from start to finish, it’s a composition that obliterates the senses.

Then there’s Cult of Today; a dubbed-out trip that seems like the forgotten track to a Lilacs & Champagne record. Pulse Ox isn’t too far off either, cloaked in eastern drone delight.

Moving away from the world of Lilacs & Champagne, Spirit Sea enters Grails territory circa-Chalice Hymnal. A song that dispenses the aroma of weed. The comedown horror arrives with Requiem for Generations Lost. The kind of dreadscapes Labradford mastered on Prazision LP.

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It all ends with Earth Angels Anthem. So far removed, it’s almost like a different band dispatching the goods, with a pastoral krautrock traipse seemingly produced in some discarded field, à la Michael Rother during the Sky Records era.

It’s the range of inventiveness that makes Infinite Tombs so captivating. To make music as intense and consistent as Pärk has done over the COVID pandemic may just be one of the greatest triumphs to emerge from underground music.

I’m sure many others have similar tales to spin over these past 18 months, however I’m not sure the quality would surpass what Pärk has produced. Infinite Tombs is further evidence of that.

Infinite Tombs is out now via Cruel Nature Records. Purchase from Bandcamp.