Take You There EP – Version 5
Cyrus Rhodes
Posted On May 11, 2016
Industrial music seems to have gone underground and stayed there for a long time since its birth in the 90s, but then again, the genre may be meant to belong in the deep recesses of underground music scenes.
Electronic rock duo Version 5, or [v5]’s debut EP “Take You There” delivers an energetic vocal and rhythmic performance meshed with Nine Inch Nails-styled industrial synths and effects. A first quick listen of the 3-song extended play threw me back to the sounds of early Linkin Park with its heavy drum instrumentation and vocals that feel life-like and live-like.
[v5] is made up of brothers Spencer and Andy Olson who after playing with various band lineups, decided to strip it down to this electronic 2-piece, much in the style of The Madden Brothers and Good Charlotte. The fact that the band worked with producer Jeff Blue (who apparently worked with Linkin Park) might have something to do with their aggressive and approachable sound.
That sound hits you straight up in the opening track “Why Don’t You Drop” with it stimulating “metal-ish” guitar riff that drives the song behind the various flanging industrial sounds whooshing around the stereo spread. The song, inspired by Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “Masque Of The Red Death”, then brings you into an intoxicatingly catchy chorus, which is probably the most memorable thing you could take away from this EP.
“Bury You” kind of downs your expectations of this band with the unnerving intro and the cliché EDM arrangement it has. However, the distorted guitar riffs and that spine-shaking chorus that dives into a half-time beat just speak volumes about the band’s sound vision. It just proves their eyebrow-raising knack for impressive choruses and hooks.
The EP-ending track “Take You There” also just proves that the previously mentioned knack is probably the only knack they have to offer as it gives us more uneventful intros and verses, and the pre-chorus just screams something that Nickelback would have come up with.
From these 3 tunes, you could have a pretty good picture of what kind of band these guys are as they try to bring something new to industrial music with their dynamic style and decent songwriting skills. But something that doesn’t show in their music is their uncanny charisma and the strong rapport between them that I realised watching their Kickstarter ad video. The brothers appear to have an ambitious mindset and I’m convinced they have a clear and well thought-out plan for their name and music to spread exponentially, and the most important and easily looked-over fact that I realised from that video, was that this band, is a fun band. Sometimes, that’s almost all you will need in music, a little fun.
URL: http://version5music.com/main
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/Version5_Band
Review by Cyrus Rhodes
