Lacking the wit and melodic appeal of last year's surprisingly successful I Robot, the Alan Parsons Project's third studio-rock oratorio is a hollow disappointment. Where I Robot was constructed on a nifty riddle -- it's cinematic space rock flaunted the technology its scenario cautioned against -- Pyramid uses the mystery of the pyramids as a jumping-off point for some bombastic musings on the vanity of human wishes and the passing of all things. Producer Parsons' aural style remains impressively three-dimensional, but given musical themes this trite and lyrics this sententious ("And the days of my life are but grains of sand/As they fall from your open hand"), the results frequently echo the kitsch soundtracks of Fifties Hollywood Biblical epics.

Original album advertising art. Click image for larger view.

The album's one lively moment, "Pyramania," spoofs the recent pyramid fad in a mechanized post-Beatles style. Which suggests that the creators of Pyramid -- Alan Parsons, writer Eric Woolfson and arranger Andrew Powell -- simply chose the pyramid theme because it sounded like a commercial "head" subject, not because it particularly fascinated them.

- Stephen Holden, Rolling Stone, 8/10/78.

Bonus Reviews!

All the songs on this LP were composed by Eric Woolfson along with Alan Parsons, but in the end it is pretty much Parson's hand behind the project. The man who created "I Robot" turns his musical attention to the "Pyramid, the last remaining wonder of the ancient world." As in the previous effort musicians are hired to play the instruments and sing the songs while Parsons, the engineer as well as the producer, twirls the knobs. As before, Parsons takes pop melodies and songs and then adds choirs and keyboards for a spacey sound. It is aurally interesting, and while it is neither rock'n'rolI, jazz, nor modern classical music, it is still a valid musical form and, of course, commercially viable. Best cuts: "Voyager," "In The Lap Of The Gods," "Pyramania."

- Billboard, 1978.

Even though it didn't break into the Top Ten like its predecessor, Pyramid was another hit for The Alan Parsons Project, going gold and peaking at number 26. Thematically, it was an exploration of mystic Middle Eastern myths and traditions, particularly pyramids and the like. * * *

- David Jehnzen, The All-Music Guide to Rock, 1995.

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