You know the story, right? In the mid-90s, Nation of Ulysses guitarist Tim Green joined forces with sympathetic San Francisco souls Tim Soete and Josh Smith (who has been known to shred a few with über-black metal outfit Weakling), and immediately commenced to answer the question of what happens when you combine the strengths of Iron Maiden, Metallica and King Crimson and thrust that ornery beast upon indie rock audiences. The guys' first releases were independent cassettes, recorded as The Champs, which were available only at live shows. Soon after, they were pressured to change the bandname by the 60s group of the same name who'd had a hit with "Tequila," so they opted instead to be known as C4AM95.

C4AM95's first official full-length, the double-album III, hit stores in 1997 on Frenetic Records, and witnessed an already fully developed band at the height of their powers dropping not only mind-numbing cock-prog adventures, but also a few electronic vignettes that might not have sounded out of place on the Flash Gordon soundtrack. 2000's IV cut the length in half, but retained the concept entirely-- and it only won them more props.

So, in the grand album tradition of Led Zeppelin and, well, Chicago, we now have V. The good news: nothing has changed; the bad news: uh, you like prog-metal, right? Hey, it could be worse (two words: Dream Theater). Besides, I defy anyone to find an ounce of pretension or bloated self-indulgence on this record. Wanky? Maybe, but probably less so than recent collaborators Trans Am, and anyway, the Fucking Champs own pretty much everyone in the super-rock department. There's a school of thought that says you have to make excuses for listening to stuff like this, but that kind of bullshit comes up limp in the face of the Champs' ability to ram a riff down your throat, not to mention their sheer sincerity.

The two-part "Never Enough Neck" starts things off subtly, with a soft synth chord that crescendos into the crashing, distorted drums and guitars. They hit riffs one right after another, the tempo relentlessly quick and drummer Soete's dexterity stunning. The first part of the tune is fairly melodic, if full of typical Champs' crunch; the second switches up to a decidedly proggy tip, odd time signatures and all.

The majestic (or as much as can be said of this band) "Children Perceive the Hoax Cluster" is actually a live track, replete with drunken screams and featuring Smith's considerable synthesizer atmospherics. The track forgoes percussive fury in lieu of pure 80s sci-fi mysticism (remember Ladyhawke?). This leads directly into another 80s trip, "I Am the Album Cover," which is something like the shameful instrumental meeting of Iron Maiden and Survivor. To my ears, even though that kind of stuff might get the Champs' more press, I think it could potentially lead to novelty-band status. The track sounds like it may have been an old four-track experiment (the music on this disc dates as far back as '93), so maybe they're focusing on a more idiosyncratic sound now.

The best tracks on V are the ones that throw caution and 80s kitsch out the window in favor of chops-ahoy-- like the up-tempo "Happy Segovia," or the epic "Aliens of Gold," which may be the best-ever example of trying to fuse the words 'prog' and 'metal,' while never uttering the word 'sux.' And yes, there is a metal version of a Bach tune here (©1723, so say the liner notes), so I suppose even the Fucking Champs aren't above the occasional Spinal Tap move. But you know, it fits right in with the other stuff. So I guess the moral is that if a band is good enough, plays hard enough, and does it without the slightest hint of irony, they can find people who'll love them regardless of the genre. Either that, or resurrecting the ghost of Randy Rhoads is the magic formula for making cool records. What do you think?