CRISIS IN CLAY

After the U Totem adventure, 5UU's reconvened under the form of a trio for this extreme and extremely bizarre album. The group now consisting of Kerman, producer Bob Drake and Sanjay Kumar and they have only one guest in the form of DiMuzio's computer twiddlings, giving the album an industrial edge, but not in a Dom Caballero-style.

The least we can say is that this phase of 5UU's is rather completely different than the pre-U Totem 5UU's. Where the group's first period was rather warm and enticing, CIC is an obtuse piece of obnoxiousness, looking for musical difficulty for its sake and that alone. Indeed, there is a search for going intentionally over the top , much the way Yes had tried with the obtusely hermetic Tales and the obvious over-virtuosity of Relayer. But Yes had managed to remain listenable and was not really cringing, which is certainly not the case with 5UU's CIC where the there are no guiding threads and the industrial rock passage appear out of nowhere to disappear just as unexplainably. In some ways this album is close to the completely aggression of Guapo's early releases and can also be reminiscent of noise rock groups with a pretension for math rock groups. There is a dimension in the music where it seems that the audible Hertzian spectrum is a bit too limited for this claustrophobic music, one that can be heard in Yes' Delirium or some GG tracks on Freehand and TP&TG album. Although the entirety of tracks are penned by Kerman (bar one collab), one can feel that Drake has whisked the controls wheel away from Dave, beit in total awareness or not.

I have no idea what overtook Dave Kerman for this album, but I wish he hadn't called this 5UU's, because it doesn't fit the group's earlier music, but to be truthful, this album has kept me from listening to more recent releases. Personally this album is simply too much for this listener(s nerves, ears, patience, adventurous spirit and everything else... Best avoided if you ask me..