Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rifftastic, April 29, 2008
I did not expect this album to be nearly this good when I bought it on a lark from Hydra Head's website. I usually hate these kind of unfair comparison descriptions, but this one is so apt I can't pass it up: Quite simply, this album sounds like seven vintage Kyuss instrumentals. And this is not cheap imitation - Hesperus has its own sound, to be sure, but 5ive have channeled and distilled all the things that made those Kyuss jams so mindblowing, and boiled it down to two instruments. 5ive are the closest thing I have yet heard to a sonic successor to those almighty original stoner riff gods. True, 5ive is yet another hard rock duo, but these guys have apparently been around for a long time, bringing the experimental riff crunch as a two-piece long before having a minimalist live setup was en vogue, and well before epic post-metal earned a major audience. And, truth be told, it sounds like there are multiple guitars powering most of the music here; this is either some studio magic, an epic lesson in the effective use of tone for all rock guitarists, or, most likely, a bit of both. This is my first experience with 5ive but it won't be my last. Absolutely immense guitar sounds, spectacular riffs, great instrumental compositions, and thunderous drums. This is one of the best releases of 2008.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Intense and unrelenting, March 22, 2009
I absolutely love this album, and the other two that I have gone on to purchase since. I bought this album on a whim and when I put it on in my car on the drive afterward it just blew everything else around me out of physical realms. It was such an intense and unexpected experience that I'm able to continue reliving with each album of theirs that I have bought so far. I would draw comparisons to Isis and Pelican as far as heavy riff bands that are mostly or all instrumental. I would say that if you like riffs and grooves along with a heavy sonic fuzz and you like the other bands mentioned then this purchase is a "no brainer".
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3.0 out of 5 stars
It's good. But 5ive are better than good., September 5, 2008
By the time it arrived, this album had been eagerly awaited by many a PsychDoomSpaceSludge-Head for a number of years. 5ive were always a favourite of mine because of how far they pushed their style out towards its own logical conclusion - endless, feedback-coma-inducing distorted jams of monstrous proportions. 'The Telestic Disfracture' was an epic headspace all of its own, and after 'The Hemophiliac Dream' EP (which no one seemed to notice was just a really whacked-out cover of Pink Floyd's "Set The Controls...") they all but disappeared for a few years.
'Hesperus' is their return. It's difficult to convey my surprise when I first heard it - it opens with sharp, machine-gun drum fills and fast, stoner-sludge riffage. "What's happened to 5ive?" I thought. The performance itself is as intense as ever - low, multi-frequency guitar notes scratch out the insides of your ears and the drums are pure kinetic energy - but the band seem to have suddenly imposed restrictions upon themselves. There are a couple of shorter tracks that are pleasant enough, but don't go anywhere. The album only really opens up to the extent of their previous works with 'News' and 'News II', two longer tracks that play to 5ive's strengths and manage to hit the high standards of the trance-state jams found on their first two Long Players.
It's a shame that somewhere along the line, 5ive decided they needed to start being concise. 'Hesperus' is by no means a bad album - on the contrary, taken on it own terms it's very good and showcases a number of diversities never previously explored by the duo. And it does, of course, rock. Very hard. But it feels like, by adopting stoner riffs and tighter dynamic changes, they're playing someone else's game. Before, they played their own game and they were the only winner. Consider the first reviewer's several Kyuss references - I love Kyuss, but 5ive should be in a different league entirely. (NB: "Different" in this context does not mean "better") They're in danger of sacrificing the experimentalism and emotional resonance, not to mention the sheer devastating heaviness, of their music.
'Hesperus' is still a really good album. 'The Telestic Disfracture' and '5ive' are mind-blowing. That's the difference.
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