5ive - Telestic Disfracture

Label: Tortuga
Year: 2001

It takes a lot for an instrumental band to get me, since my tastes are at best "meat and potatoes", or at worst "Philistine". So my simian brain tends to need the vocals in order to complete the synapse connections that allow for enjoyment. I is dummy.
Luckily for me, 5ive ease me into their instrumental version of driving drone (is that possible?) by providing some occasional vocals on this release. Better yet, those vocals come from Jonah Jenkins of Milligram/Raw Radar War/Only Living Witness/etc. which is always a good thing.
Even without the vocals though, 5ive have an uncanny knack for pulling you (I...we...us?) into the song and taking you along for an extended ride through big, warm, undulating jams of overdriven fuzzed out power throttling. Most songs extend out well beyond the 10 minute mark, which again, to my simple thought process is a huge red flag, but in the capable hands of this band you wouldn't want them to end any earlier. They build perfectly on the back of a slow avalanche of a riff rumbling down the side of mountainous drumming, gaining speed and energy as it rolls towards the unsuspecting ski chalet in the valley below. From a distance the destruction is in slow motion, beautiful in it's massive fury, but up close, inside the tumult, it's a swirling, choking, overwhelming haze of noise and bombast.
This record was recorded and engineered by Andrew Schneider formerly of Slughog, Pigs, and Barbaro, and the current co-owner of Coextinction Recordings, which I mention because the sound on it is just humongous, perfectly relaying the giant wallop this band delivers.
5ive is a two piece guitar/drums duo, but on this outing they are helped out by the aforementioned Jonah Jenkins and Mike Hubbard (of Warhorse).

DL