Here's the Australian 5ive. Not that easy to get this review over with apparently. I took a long time to get this name right. Hotel Wrecking City Traders. I frankly didn't know what to expect from an instrumental guitar-drum brother-duo's first album - would it be some Explosions in the Sky type thing? or is it going to be like Earth? Om? The right answer of course is, none of the above. 5ive and Karma to Burn are very valid reference points dear readers, but this band, unlike that bitch Stella, has its own groove right at start and has no problem whatsoever finding it.

Heavy fuzzy, noisy guitars from Toby 'Wrecker' Mathews completely lock with Ben 'Wrecker' Mathews as they do straight-up groovy fuzz rock. It gets better when they do these quirky time signatures effortlessly. And it's just plain great once they start getting heavier with the added double-bass pounding kicking things up a notch.

While the first three songs are to-the-point and very strong, the fourth one called Eavesdropper shows the band in a different light. The song begins with hypnotic distorted guitars heavily effected with delay and some heavy hitting straight grooves from the drummer. The listener is taken through a series of ups and downs through this ten minute song. The next one Rolling Implements too, is in a similar vein. The two rambling noisy fuzz metal epics is followed by the album-closer Pagoda, which sees them go back to their earlier straight-up structure.

I'm not too comfortable with the song order, but for genre fans, this is a cool addition this year. Black Yolk is put out by the brothers themselves through their label Bro Fidelity. Start clicking and enter the world of City Wreck...oops..Hotel Wrecking City Traders.



Label: Bro Fidelity
Year of Release: 2008

http://myspace.com/hotelwreckingcitytraders