Shadow Kingdom Records will release Gabriel Lejeune's debut solo album, 'Pyramids', on October 30 on CD and vinyl LP. The first track, "Infinite Horizons", is streaming now on the label's Bandcamp, where the record is also up for preorder.
Lejeune is the lead guitarist and songwriter of Louisiana's VOID, who have been turning heads in the underground since last year's 'Forbidden Morals', also on Shadow Kingdom. 'Pyramids' is the first time he steps out on his own, and he does it without a singer: the album is fully instrumental.
VOID have never hidden their debt to the tech-thrash school of FORBIDDEN, TOXIK and ANNIHILATOR, and the label pitches 'Pyramids' as what happens when those ideas are pushed to the front with no vocals in the way. The other obvious reference point is the golden age of shred: early Yngwie Malmsteen and the Shrapnel Records catalog of the 1980s. According to Shadow Kingdom, though, Lejeune works with a wider emotional and textural range than pure speed-picking, with labyrinthine song structures, constant tempo shifts and lead playing expressive enough that the missing vocals are never felt.
'Pyramids' track listing:
- Terrifying Triangles
- Flying Trapeze
- Infinite Horizons
- Bad Fracture
- Déjà Rêvé
- How Can This Be
- Words Can't Say
- Reminiscences
Order & Stream "Pyramids": Bandcamp
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