Review Summary: Open the gate. Open your soul. It'll make what's coming a little less of a shock.
The lights are dim. The audience is hushed. The show is about to start. Opening 5th dimension is a short rendition of ‘O Fortuna’. The choir builds over the malevolent sounding orchestra affecting great drama and importance. The curtains open, choir and orchestra full throttle on the final notes, revealing Japan’s newest girl group sensation, Momorio Clover Z, dressed in their assigned colours, running onto the stage as they soak up the applause. Without hearing any of their own music, you know exactly what kind of music you’re about to hear… sensationalist pop … but don’t be fooled, what you’re about to experience is one of the most fun and entertaining pop albums of the year.
Immediate album highlight Neo STARGATE opens the album. The foreboding choir continues on from the opening and melds with the electronic rhythms to form a well woven backdrop for the pop epic. In between the dubstep breaks and choir chants, the girls’ singing and vocal melodies wrap all the seemingly excessive parts into an expansive yet comfortable arrangement that simply works very, very well. Like Neo STARGATE, BIRTH φ BIRTH, is largely electronics and uses dubstep more creatively, although the arrangement of the song isn’t quite as impressive.
5th Dimension, however, is a whole lot more than electronic pop music. While the majority of tracks on this album are fast-paced 月と銀紙飛行船 and 灰とダイヤモンド are decidedly slow with strong classical arrangements, using additional clean sounds to supplement the textures. The classical influence on this album is present in other tracks such as Z女戦争 which goes through rounds of fast-paced and ballad-like section before receding into peaceful bet well-layered vocalise, glock, flute and harp.
There’s certainly a lot of thought put into a lot of the arrangements in this album but there are a few of tracks which feel as though they’re just using enough creativity in the arrangements to warrant being just above filler. Such tracks include 労働讃* which throws back to the 80s without adding anything special and ゲッダーン! which starts with an interesting rhythmic theme and bass part, but fails to capitalise on using what’s interesting about the song which leads to a lot of it being dull.
Diversity is certainly not lacking in this album, in a way it’s its greatest strength but at times it feels directionless, only being tied together by the quality of the songs. This becomes very apparent by track number 3, 猛烈宇宙交響曲・第七楽*「無限の 」. Combining metal presence, girlish squeals, Neo STARGATE's choir, Christmas bells, 3 second harp intervals, guitar solos and harpsichord sounds like a recipe for disaster, which exemplifies why this isn’t an album you’re supposed to take seriously on the first time listening to it. It’s only once the zaniness settles in that you can really appreciate what 5th Dimension has to offer.
However, there is one song when all of the craziness adds up to something both thoroughly accessible and that demonstrates the charm that this album offers. Penultimate and standout track サラバ、愛しき悲しみたちよ, buoyed with a catchy synth lead and driven by a sinister harpsichord, brings home the goods with catchy hooks, well-used guitar and a flowing but not always predictable structure.
5th Dimension ranges from being good to being superb, from dubstep to classical, from rock to their core of pop. They’re everywhere at once but always brimming with energy and adventure. 5th Dimension performs like a variety show all fronted by one group, and Momoiro Clover Z delivered.
