secret pyramid: the silent march

Originally released in 2011 on cassette by the Canadian micro-imprint Nice-Up International, The Silent March is the precursor to 2013’s Movements of Night and can be viewed as something of a mission statement for Amir Abbey’s skyriding Secret Pyramid project. Critics have compared the Secret Pyramid sound to the more blasted entries in the Popul Vuh catalog and to Flying Saucer Attack’s cherished fuzz devotionals, and indeed Abbey’s reverb-drenched songforms and titanic edifices of drone do feel at times as though they’ve been cut from the same cloth. Opener “Outside” might be best understood as the soundtrack to slow-motion video footage of a first-person plunge over some impossibly grand waterfall on an endless loop, as tumbling overtones fight for air among turbid plumes of distortion. “Still Return” finds acoustic guitar figures struggling to escape a blinding mist, their resolution finally arriving in the form of the sublime tranquility of the titular track which follows. Abbey weaves themes of birth, death, nostalgia and existential dread into an album as cohesive as it is all-consuming, a spell that seeks to simultaneously welcome and protect against darkness in its many forms. This edition of The Silent March features an improved mix-down by Abbey and a remaster by James Plotkin to insure maximum transport.