Review: Six

Six
“When The Beauty’s Gone”
(1605 Worldwide Ent.)

To even attempt to grasp Six, one needs to understand the force behind this band, Lauren, (who is a force, undeniable – catch it live) who was the life of another band called Drown.  A phenomenal band that was the poster child for getting fucked over by the world of the major corporate labels.  It’s a deep story unto itself with the end result being two killer albums and an incredibly driven musician without a band.  There was a band called Famous in there somewhere, which was basically some core members of Drown, but now there is Six.  Which sounds like Lauren returning to his roots of stark, angry rock with a heavy twist of electronic spicing in the underlying rhythms.  The opening track, ‘Stranger, Killer, King’ is actually an old Drown song I have on a ‘Throwing Away the Demos’ EP, but that had a dryer and more unbalanced mix (hey, it was a demo), so the Six version is better, hands down.  The touchstone of Six is lyrics, as it’s always been Lauren’s strong point, painfully simplistic odes to betrayal in all forms, bitter as it’s always been.  I say ‘simplistic’ in the most complimentary of terms.  Easily relatable tales of alienation and self-distancing that smacks so much more credibly than much of the nu-metal ‘self-loathing is hip’ anthems.  Without having ANY rap feel, the lyrics do have rhyme skills and flows that would impress any MC.  The drum machine sounds need to be pulled back a bit in the mix, but that might be a personal thing, as the guts of this is the rhythmic crunch of instruments digging a groove into your skin until it leaves a mark.  With the exception of the more aggressive closer, ‘Something’s Gotta Give’ (one of the stand out tracks) the feel of locked tempos that comes from playing against loops does permeate this release.  Six could explode out of their mold with some more challenging directions in the structures that would speed it up, break it down… do something other than rumble along the same pace, leaving it up to Lauren to build up and tear down the intensity with his vocals.  There is some dynamic with pulling things back, letting different elements lead and having it all crash together, but again, you could set one of those metronomes up (y’know, that little thing that clicks back and forth to keep tempos – sorry, with some of the music we get here, I feel the need to explain what a metronome is…) and let it go and it would pace any song on here beat for beat.  But it’s dark and driven.  And its source is pure enough.  Given some time to focus it and let it breath it’s own life before it’s creators abandon it, Six could attain the recognition it deserves.