PHASE V

I have come across some rave reviews of this album elsewhere, but I have to admit to considerable disappointment. It's not a bad album, you understand, it just has little that stands out enough to make it special. There is a lot of energy here, and it positively throbs with thundering, old-style heavy riffs on bass and drums that worm their way into the psyche. But but too often they are let down by a barrage of aimless guitar noodling in long free form instrumentals that cover a lot of territory without seeming to go anywhere. There's very little melody here, just tripped out heavy thrashes interspersed with gentler sequences, occasionally relinquishing rhythm for ambience.

When the overdriven guitars shut down for a while and the riffs and keys get a chance to breathe, the music gets suitably hypnotic, even on a heavy section like '61 74' which features some excellent organ chops. The band have a good control of tension, and the main fascination of a couple of tracks is working out the exotic time signature, but in general there is simply not enough variation to sustain the whole album. I like the rhythm section though - tight, punchy and masterful!

I am not familiar with any of the band's other albums, and to be honest, on this showing I am in no great hurry to rectify that. Perhaps I simply fail to understand what they are trying to achieve, especially regarding some sort of concept to do with numbers, but on the face of it this is music best appreciated in an altered mind-state. If you are looking for good, modern heavy space-rock then this is quite a good example, but there are others who do it much better [eg Hidria Spacefolk or First Band From Outer Space].

They've certainly toned things down a lot from their previous album "Liquid".That record was almost doom-like in places whereas this one is more trippy and even-keeled. I like this one a lot though especially when the organ and guitar come to the fore.

"20 09" opens with not much going on until it kicks in after a minute. Drums and a trippy sound is the result.The guitar is more prominant before 3 minutes. Great sound ! Some nice organ runs here too. "23 32" kicks in heavily right away, guitar fills the air as the organ joins in.

"06 18" is slower but heavier. I like the guitar. It turns spacey after 2 1/2 minutes and then blends into the next song "44 05". It changes to a trippy sound with organ fairly quickly.The guitar dominates after 2 minutes for about a minute. It starts to turn spacey then out of nowhere before 6 minutes we get a ripping guitar solo. It settles with drums before 8 minutes before turning really spacey again before 10 minutes. "22 25" opens with relaxed guitar melodies that soon turn aggressive. Organ and drums start to build. It settles then kicks back in. Love the guitar before 4 minutes.

I do like this style of music a lot, especially turned up loud.

MUSIC IS MATHEMATICS MADE AUDIBLE': BOETHIUS (480-526).... * SEPTEMBER 18th 2005 * 35007 * NEW ALBUM * PHASE V * JUST NUMBERS AND SOUND. NO WORDS NO IMAGES. PHASE V IS AN INTERMEDIATE STATE. NO PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION IN FORESEEABLE FUTURE. TIME WILL TELL WHAT THE NEXT PHASE WILL BE.....

This is what the official website says to launch the new and unfortunately the last album of this spacey band. We are still waiting for the next phase.

The track titles are just made of numbers. One may think that they are times of the day, but 44:05 is possible only since Jupiter to above. Put together they are like a matrix but the last track title doesn't fit. Let's quit with mathematics and move to music now.

This album is not very different from Liquid. The first track is very similar to Tsunami, with a repetitive theme made of powerful keyboards, drums,bass and guitar. Just to give you an idea think to Ozric Tentacles with a touch of Pink Floyd of the Meddle period. There's not the explosion of Tsunami but the second track opens really powerful so it's an explosion itself. Respect to the previous albums there's no longer the hard rock of the debut and there's less psychedelia than on the following ones. Effectively I could think to be listening to the Ozric Tentacles and this is the limit of this album: it sounds like a clone.

Luckily the things change with the third track. A chord of distorted guitar (or is it a bass?) makes the base. The tempo is slow. If you mentally replace this sound with a bass playing the same note alternating the octaves it would sound like Careful With That Axe Eugene, only more powerful and without screams.

The fourth track is slower and a bit more spacey. The guitar makes a good work. With a bit of fantasy I can hear echoes of Porcupine Tree, but the guitar is old-fashioned. This is the only true psychedelic track, bluesy and acid. More of this stuff, please.

The title of the last track should mean that this is the union of two different songs. However it starts with a harping of clean guitar, a crescendo of drums electric guitar and finally organ. The sound of the organ made me think to Niacin at the first listen, and effectively this bluesy song sounds very similar.

In brief the first half of the album doesn't reach the 3 stars, but the last two tracks deserve more than 4, so my final rating is three. If I could limit my review to the last two tracks I would speak of an excellent example of psychedelic rock. During my review I have mentioned some bands. Fans of them should like this album as well.