5ive's Continuum Research Project
The Hemophiliac Dream
5
"The Hemophiliac Dream" is the latest album from the band now known as 5IVE'S CONTINUUM RESEARCH PROJECT. They recently changed their name from just plain "5ive". The band is along the lines of Sleep and Kyuss, but darker, more spacey and seemingly more acid induced. The EP starts with some mellow guitar and spacey string noises fading in and out. The guitars are big into the ambient noise thing like feedback, distorted crackles, pops and squeals. It sounds pretty good. There's a little cymbal wash in the background to help give the sound some fluidity and added depth. Soon after the bass starts and then the drums start to crescendo. At this point things are sounding decent. A little slow maybe, but decent. It's sounds like their is some light vocals for a very short time, but I read that there are no vocals on this EP. Finally the music kicks in to a loose feel. The main guitars are tuned low...doom low...probably somewhere around the key of "B" I. The tone and distortion are super saturated, much like the Kyuss sound. The riffs basically ride the low string with an occasional accent . Not a whole lot happening there. But, there are some cool riffs that sound exactly like something Kyuss would throw on an album with a low riff and a couple cool string bends. The drums are very loose and it sounds like the drummer is bashing away pretty hard. Again, like the Kyuss sound. The drum sound isn't great, nor is the over all sound, but it works well enough. The bass work is pretty standard doom. The bassist even uses a fuzz tone in sections. Here's what the record label has to say about their latest album: "5ive's latest foray into the realm of instrumental alchemy is a hypnotic microcosm distilling the glacial peal of inevitability and the cyclical repetition of sinusoidal motion into 24 minutes of blissful extrasensory extrapolation. Fractals of sonic ephemera pierce the dense undertow of swirling narco-rhythms, creating a mildly unsettling breach of the tenuous stereophonic divide between aural cognizance and physical manifestation." It sounds to me like somebody needs to put their thesaurus away! This album consists of two songs. The song "The Hemophiliac Dream" is nearly twenty three minutes long! It is an instrumental that I suppose is along the lines something off of Kyuss' "Blues for theRed Sun" album. This song grows tiring after awhile and is quite bland and uninteresting after you've heard the same general riff for 10 minutes. The ambient guitar effects are okay, but can only hold the music for so long. The real problem I had was with the second song, which is actually the first song, but "re-mixed" by some cat by the name of James Plotkin. It basically took a mediocre 23 minute foray and turned it into some kind of techno inspired (annoying) non-sense. I just don't see anyone, but the most easily pleased and ignorant, enjoying this "re-mix". Pretty lame. Overall, the music is basic doom with a spacey feel to it. It's simplistic beyond words, but if you dig the sound and the concept then it's a fair listen. Probably a good cd to have in the player when your coming down from a night of hard chargin' but this cd certainly can't honestly compete with bands of Kyuss' standing, let alone all the other talented doom bands out there. Some will like this EP, but I say; "buy at your own risk". It is a 2 listen CD to me. After that, it's a dust magnet. There's much better doom out there.
