Overview

Overdrive Hell 5: Everybody's Hizumi Heaven is the fifth in a series of hardcore and experimental electronic EPs featuring Ayako Saso and Shinji Hosoe. While not for everyone, it does feature some interesting music for those fans of this style of electronic music. How does this album compare to the previous entries in the ongoing series?

Body

The album opens with "Lesson 19 Strain for All," a theme that is very reminiscent in style to Shinji Hosoe's more hardcore tracks for the Ridge Racer series, although with some twists here and there. There is a lot of vocal chopping that adds to the track, but what I find most pleasing is the incorporation of bass guitar to give a bit of a groovy feeling to the mix, acoustic guitar to for an organic touch, and piano glisses and ethereal synth to give a lulling sense. I think all of these elements work well with the heavy beats heard throughout most of the track.

"Lesson 20 No Immediate effect" opens up rather ominously with distorted, choppy synthesizer and heavily modified and distorted vocoder samples. It incorporates a hardcore beat mixed with some more playful synthesizer work in the background, although this is subtle and is more of a layering effect more than anything. At times, the beat is dropped and the atmosphere becomes sinister once again through its unique accompaniment rhythm and echoing vocal samples, eerie trance hits, moody strings work, and industrial electronic tones. This is definitely the best section of the theme. Overall, it's a great theme, but not one that will be accessible to everyone.

My favorite track is probably "Lesson 21 Analo bear." It opens up with a playful, almost heroic synth melody combined with hardcore beats and clapping. Thrown into the mix is some electric guitar to bring a bit of funk to the mix. Many vocal samples are incorporated into the theme, some giving a more futuristic sound, some giving a bit of a reggae tone. There are also some sections with sharp, rhythmic electronic hits that give it a bit of a swing feel. I also love how that playful heroic synth melody is incorporated throughout the track.

Lastly, "Lesson 22 Tokyo Unplugged" is essentially an evolution of "Junk Plant" by Ayako Saso from Nanosweep 2. German vocal samples and sinister, distorted synthesizer open up the mix before a very hardcore beat is incorporated. There is some sinister, ethereal synthesizer that breaks up the mayhem at times, while only featuring an occasional beat. I think the vocal samples, however, really add to the track. There are quite a variety, ranging from vulgar expressions, to psychological German vocal samples that help tie into the opening "Angefangen" samples, to something that one might hear from a DJ during a live set and sometimes they are distorted to match the beat. The track ends with a very ethereal and beautiful atmospheric synth, which while seeming out of place initially, really helps bring the listener back down to earth after the hardcore experience heard throughout the rest of the album.

Summary

This album is definitely not for the faint of heart. Fans of hardcore and experimental music may enjoy this album, particularly if they have been following the series. However, for those interested in this, it may be best to try to listen to some of Ayako Saso and Shinji Hosoe's more hardcore music to get a feeling for the nature of this album. While this album may not be the most accessible, compared to the last album in the series, it is definitely the most creative.