SIX BY SEVEN
THE CLOSER YOU GET
Nottingham's quintet's "fast, furious, angry" follow-up to 1998's underachieving 'The Things We Make' album.
3/5
Despite what some bands might want to believe, truly iconoclastic albums are rarely Just About The Music. Records, like, say, 'London Calling' or 'The Velvet Underground & Nico' [both namechecked by Six By Seven in recent interviews] owe their revered status as much to a glorious combination of image, myth and spectacular luck as the tunes within.
According to this definition, Six By Seven were never well placed to be a truly momentous band. Yet, by both trimming down the length of their songs and turning up the volume on their second album, the band have produced a jagged, bileful beast of a record. From the monolithic assault of 'Another Love Song' to the fragile drone-pop of 'England And A Broken Radio', Six By Seven have made a good album, but not a great one.
'Sawn Off Metallica T-shirt' is like 3 Colours Red doing Big Black while tacking on the kind of mirthsome HM rhetorics beloved of late-'80s Blast First act Head Of David. Sadly, Six By Seven are more than likely to follow HOD's big-riffed routemarch to oblivion.
Pat Long
(May I point out that this issue of Select featured Muse on its cover, and that many got deservedly burnt on the beach at ATP :) ?)