CRISIS IN CLAY

This album is the successor of the colorful, dynamic "Hunger's Teeth": "Crisis in Clay" shows as a 5uu's alive, kicking and more determined than ever to pursue the preservation of the heritage from Henry Cow and Art Bears with tons of muscle and poise. The band's sound bears a major dose of consistence than on the previous effort, which in no small degree is due to the augmented presence of guitars in the instrumentation. That you can suspect from square one, and this suspicion is sometimes confirmed as the listening experience goes on. There are some rough passages in which 5uu's reminds us less of the British classic RIO and more of good old Faust. And of course, we shouldn't overlook the confluence with Thinking Plague. The record opens up with 'Corneuppance', a disjointed play of drums and guitar with abundant dissonances and voids. 'Broadside Hits and Near Misses', with its surrealistic hermetism, states a ceremonious passage of autumnal moods before the more articulated 'How-To's of Self Taught'. 'Bought the Farm' is a clever mixture of Zapaesque humor and "Western Culture"-era HC. The paranoid industrial display of 'Simply Agree' and the bipolar robustness of 'Goliath in the Sights' introduce us to some of the most complex twists in the album, although this should not come as a surprise. With the pairing of 'December' and 'Hunger Gatherer' we have a challenging (the whole album is challenging.) alternation of industrially driven atmospheres and the architectonic aspect of chamber-rock. 'What Price Virtue?' leads us to a reincorporation of the moods of tracks 1 and 6. 'Darkened Door' is perhaps the most epic piece in the album, stating a bizarre majesty than ultimately leads to a chaotic coda, very much in tune with the track's relentless dynamics. 'Willful Suspension of Disbelief' and 'Cirrus' offer gradually more relaxing moods among the whole series of experimental ideas that had taken place so far, before 'Weaponry' brings back the tense frenzy. I feel the power of 'Weaponry' as an anticipation of the intricate colorfulness of 'Absolutely, Absolute', yet another exercise on epic RIO. The epilogue 'Ringing in the New Ear' consists of the sounds of someone's footsteps heading for a door to get out of the room - a literal epilogue, indeed. In perspective, this album is less kaleidoscopic than some other 5uu's albums, but it sure provides a tight, powerful approach to the unrelenting experimental cerebral rock that Kerman and co. state as a musical stance and a perspective about the world. "Crisis in Clay" is the manifestation of an uncompromising commitment to art and reality.