This is again not the New York Five Minute Major, but a band of the same name form Utah. This is the ill-titled follow-up to "Headstage" that starts off sort of slow with two instrumentals: "D.i.l.l.i.g.a.f.f.", an unnecessary electronic intro, and "Intake", a heavier sort of crossover piece that sounds not unlike what they were doing on the last CD. The first actual song however is way rocked out with some unusual chord phrasings, and there's a bit more of the rock feel going on with a lot of these songs, though they still carry that crossover thrash thing with them (which I actually prefer). Towards the middle of the disc there are a few quick tracks that focus on this heavier direction ("Dog Day", "Pig", and "Rooster"), and even though the lyrics can be cheesy, the songs definitely sound better than most of the other stuff herein. "Lever" is faster and more straightforward, it's catchy without any of the poppy/rock influences. That's where they need to be heading. The production is very similar to the last CD here, but improvements have been made in that the basslines are much more discernible and the guitars are a bit heavier and more harnessed. Other than that I still feel that the vocals are slightly loud on occasion, but the drums sound fine and they're doing a good job with what they've got. This time the layout is actually worse than their last CD. It's very similar. The CD-R is in a jewel case with a pink CD tray, everything was printed on a home computer, the imagery is all inconsistent, etc. But this time they used a ton of different fonts, all of which are totally horrendous and probably reside in the top 10 list of "fonts that should never be used" in a graphic design handbook somewhere. No lyrics, just some band information. That's that. All in all I like this CD slightly more than the last one on a musical level, but to be blunt it still looks like shit and they really need to work on that. Also, at this point I'd say they should can the rock 'n' roll stuff and stick with the faster, thrashier material because that's absolutely what they do best. They're sitting on something that could be good, but they've got to put some effort into it. This could be just a hobby for the guys, but there's no sense in recording music and putting it out if you're not serious about it on some level.
[self-released]
Running time - 33:49, Tracks: 14
[Notable tracks: Dog Day, Pig, Lever]
Five Minute Major - http://www.fiveminutemajor.homestead.com
