The Current Demo Review:

Artist: Five Pointe O
Band Members: Dan Struble (vocals), Eric Wood (guitar, vocals), Sharon Grzelinski (guitar), Tony Starcevich (drums), Sean Pavey (bass), Casey Mejia (keyboard)
Location: Joliet, IL

Listen to this Artist's Demos at Their Web Site

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There are currently 4 Reviews of this Demo.
Average Rating: 3.5

Reviewed by Musashi (added 1/27/00):
Album Reviewed: Five Pointe O
Death handed me this CD and told me to do a review. Not being one to argue with Death, I agreed. Let's walk through this step by step. First, there is a color picture of the band on the cover and their name is easy to read. You can tell from the picture the music is probably going to be something to skate to. Also if you take the time to notice there are six people in the band, you will probably guess that there is a keyboard player or a DJ in the band (bad sign!). Second, look at the back cover and you notice the CD demo only has 4 songs. That's a good sign, I know I won't be tied down too long listening to it. Also written on the back of the CD is the copyright information and the contact information, including web address, email address and manager's phone number. Straightforward and to the Pointe.
On the back of the insert card is a collage of black and white photos. These look like they were taken at their high school. This is good and bad. It's good because you get a sense that these kids are young and fresh. It's bad because you get a sense that they haven't played any "real gigs." The graphics on the CD itself are pretty cool. I put the CD in and it starts off good. They start with a good song but I think the third track is better. At least the first song was good enough that it made me want to listen to the other three songs. The band sounds best when they are playing thick, crunchy guitar riffs and the singer is rapping or growling. When the band slows down they start to lose steam. There are some noticeable glitches on the demo. The singer is off key a lot, the drummer loses time occasionally and there is too much keyboard for my taste. However, that doesn't make them any worse than Korn or Limp Bizkit. Overall the CD sounds well recorded and well mixed.
Five Pointe O have their shit together. Their demo is very professionally done; it sounds and looks like a good demo. I hope they get signed and come around the New York area on tour. I like to give constructive criticism and my only comment for this band is to focus on the hard/heavy stuff which, in my opinion, kicks ass.

Reviewed by redwolff (added 1/27/00):
Album Reviewed: Five Pointe O
The first song, "King of the Hill," is my favorite on this disk. It sounds like a mix of Rage Against the Machine, Sepultura and early Fear Factory, and the keyboard/sampler part helps create a rich sound for the song. The second song, "GP2," is my least favorite because of the wholly unimaginative keyboard part which largely dominates the song. "Waiting to Fall" is the third song, back to the rap/metal sound. A lot of energy in this song, slightly off-key, whining, hardcore vocals. The sampling isn't too bad on this but a little unsophisticated. "Awake," the last song, starts with goth keyboard, which actually isn't bad, except again the sound of the keyboard itself is cheap and unsophisticated. Spend the money, get a better machine. This song is more industrial than the others and would be the only tune from this CD you'd hear, with some tweaking, on an industrial dance mix disk.
This band obviously has a lot of influences (see their website, www.fivepointeo.com to read about the members' influences) and this CD is an attempt to mix them all together harmoniously. In general, it works. I think it would be even more successful with a revamping of the keyboard sound, but I suppose the band is going to have to hit it big before they can afford a Kurzweil. I'm also impressed that the majority of the band members are 19 or younger. They have an interesting sound, and though they aren't such a tight band yet I think they could achieve that if they continue to play together.
My rating, out of 5 skulls: I'd like to give this band a four skull rating for both their promise at such young ages and their valiant attempt at joining different influences into one package, but I'm going to have to take off one skull for occasional lack of cohesion. Unfortunately, we can't give half skulls (what the fuck would you do with half a skull?), which would be ideal, so overall rating: Three skulls.

Reviewed by Death (added 1/27/00):
Album Reviewed: The Other Side
A dreamy and distant, hauntingly atmospheric introduction kicks off the excellent demo CD, featuring vocals reminiscent of Layne Stayley, Perry Ferrell, and Trent Reznor all at the same time. But by the time the mechanized dirge segues into "Purity 01," the second track, the resulting "spoken word rap over middle- eastern flavored guitar line" is so distinctly Zach De La Rocha inspired that I'm sure I could convince you it was an unreleased track by Rage Against the Machine. But that initial impression lasts about thirty seconds, before the punishing death-metal growl kicks in for the first time and blows your freakin' head off. Abrupt dynamics and contrasting stylistic approaches such as these separate Five Pointe O from the "nu-metal" pretenders.
The song writing is pretty cool too. I like some of the lyrics like "I can't eat right, I can't sleep right . . . can't even fuckin' breathe right" ("Christ"). Crudely stated, if you'll indulge me for a moment in a movie-pitch style metaphor for the lack of any sharper analogy, The Other Side is Rage Against the Machine meets Machine Head meets Stabbing Westward meets Fear Factory meets Jane's Addiction meets Nine Inch Nails meets Korn. It is interesting, modern headphone rock and would probably sound right on the roster of Roadrunner Records. Like Roadrunner act Slipknot, Five Pointe O get a sicker, more metal attack than any of the bands I mentioned in the movie pitch analogy. Unlike Slipknot, they don't do it often enough. But Five Pointe O have great potential.

Hel's Review (added 1/20/00):
Album Reviewed: The Other Side
There are two sides to this band. The cool, heavy, death metal-y side, and the lame rap-metal side. I'm a metalhead and I like my music to be heavy- distorted guitar, double bass drums, that sort of thing. The times I hear these elements in Five Pointe O, I think that they are much more talented than I expected. The production on the CD is clear and the instruments are handled well.
They actually sent a press kit that was reasonably professional, a glossy black folder with shiny band sticker on the front and a business card inserted on the pocket inside, 2 CDs, a photo- a bit grainy but otherwise decent- and several press sheets on nice paper. The press sheets were informative, but I was immediately put off by some of the comparisons made in them. Citing Limp Bizkit is certainly not a plus in my book.
All in all, I have to say these kids (the bio reveals 1/2 the band are still teens) have a strong start. I have to be more or less objective in my grading; after all, just because it's not my kind of music doesn't mean it's bad music. If you like this sub-genre, you may very well enjoy Five Pointe O. Personally, I don't really like this style, so I drop a skull from the score I would have given it if I was actually into this kind of music.

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