Masarati - 2010 - Pyramid of the Sun

Quality: 4.25 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4.25 out of 5

My college roommate was quite turned on to the sound of these guys.  The interlocking wire-like guitar line caught my attention, but the synth pop infusion prevalent on this release really brought me into the fold.  Masarati melds their guitar expertise with the unfulfilled promises of post-rockers Trans Am on this release.  It's the sound of the disco in hell, and that makes for a fine experience in my book - at least if we assume that it's just a decadent visit.

There's not a ton of variation on this LP, but it doesn't matter so much with the groove that the band sets up on "Pyramid of the Sun."  The legendary Can proved it first and Masarati are acolytes of that Deutsch gospel - if you set the field with precise, metronomic drumming and have the chops to match it, you can ride it home on the second star to the right, straight on till morning.  The band finds their sharpest honing of this particular implement on the widescreen "Oaxaca."  It sounds like if Kraftwerk gave up on the robots and cranked up the amplifiers.  "Ruins" takes the groove into subterranean depths, distorting and plowing the sounds though an industrial refractory prism.

The sounds here are a shining crystal darkened with the sound of a fantastical future dystopia.  It's krautrock metronomik wailing away in a sleazy discotheque.  If Trans Am's "Futureworld" was your gospel of 1999 (as it was mine), then this is a fine piece of vinyl to serve as your "Acts."  Psychedelically biblical, man (sorry, I just finished a history book on Jerusalem).