Whether you're a longtime fan of Joy Division or a booster of Bloc Party, there's much you'll find familiar on the debut LP of These New Puritans. But out of all the British bands still playing under the umbrella of post-punk, there's so much that TNP get right about the sound: scraps of syncopated guitars making the barest insinuations of melody, stiff electronic beats that sound like factory noise, and singer who barks excitedly but whose message is initially cryptic. The pattern suits them well and doesn't sound derivative or dated; that may be in part to this record owing as much to its heavy, ominous beats as its guitars or melody. "Numerology (AKA Numbers)" has a bludgeoning thump driving its layered keyboards and chicken-scratch guitars, while "Doppelganger" has atmospheric effects that would fit onto any Prefuse 73 record.
Moreover, there aren't any wide-eyed ballads or snappy, ingratiating choruses here. These New Puritans come at their songs as if they were challenges presented to them and they write them to their own distinctive logic. It's simpler than it sounds: Finding just the right amount of verse to fit in 60 seconds on "Swords of Truth" or how much tension they can wrest from (and how long they can get away with playing) one open note on "Elvis". Rather than verse to chorus and back, the songs seem like chunks of raw riffage and misbehaving machinery sewn together, their sleek edges fitting perfectly. Electronic interludes flow expertly between the tracks, never sounding extraneous, while the songs themselves are full of jagged transitions, like the percussive rant of "C 16th" or the seething patchwork of "Colours": A flurry of drums into a strutting chorus and simmering bridge section. Meanwhile, lyrics bleed from one song to the other, melodies and themes are recycled, titles blur into each other-- the album is almost remixing itself as it moves along, adding to its chaotic overall feel.
Tantalizing advance singles "En Papier" and "Elvis" are both here, with "En Papier" veering between from winding guitar licks to anchorless electronic textures, and "Elvis" maybe the album's most insistent track-- its tension and release is much simpler than many of the other tracks, but the chorus is monstrous, as is the payoff. They're among the album's best, but they don't outshine the rest, and Beat Pyramid proves to be an affirming and promising first step. The mystery and paranoia are mostly communicated through the music rather than the heavy repetition of the lyrics, with their questions about numbers and sums of money coming through in impatient monotones. Making a genre that's become a bankable prospect sound earnest and exciting is no easy feat; hopefully the next step is finding room for some more trenchant messages along with it.
