By Geoff Topley
Nottingham’s Six By Seven initially roamed the indie landscape at the tail end of the 90s when Britpop was having the final few nails hammered into its well worn coffin.
Probably 10 years too late, their hue of drone inspired guitar rock appealed to me greatly. Initial hope for them being the next big thing dissipated and eventually the band found themselves fragmented and the inevitable split happened. A chance meeting with ex-Placebo drummer Steve Hewitt found frontman Chris Olley reform the band and Love and Peace and Sympathy is the resultant album created from the recording sessions with Doves/Biffy Clyro producer Dan Austin.
It’s not a bad album, but as I’ll go on to explain, this is probably about the best comment I can make. The problem is that over the 9 (long) tracks, the pace rarely picks up above a pedestrian tempo. I’m all for simple structures, but when you’re faced with pretty much every track being constructed around a basic 2 note/chord sequence, it becomes a wearying experience. Not at all the “Nine songs of pure drumming dynamite and feral guitars” the press release wants us to believe. There’s drone and then there’s just… dull.
The opening trio of songs all seem to be vying to be the intro song. You know, the slow burning kind that starts all quiet and menacing, then builds and builds until the gauge marked EPIC is being nudged. ‘Change’ is six minutes of faux-intensity, ‘Sympathy’ is 6 minutes of more of the same and ‘Truce’ breaks your resolve by adding an extra 3 minutes into the stodgy mix. It’s only on track 6 (!) that the tempo picks up in any way and even then it’s a tired Doves-romp 4/4 standard ‘The Rise and Fall and Decline of Everything’. Finally, the realisation that we might all be needing something to wake us up again, things get more rocking on the final two tracks, ‘Crying’ (the best track, but another uninspiring song title) and ‘Fall Into Your Arms’, which has a much needed furious blow-out at the end.
I was very much looking forward to hearing this album, their early records really floated my boat, although commercial success eluded them. As I said at the start, this is by no means a bad record, there just isn’t enough variation in the sound or the structure of the songs. Even a revision to the track listing might have made it a more enjoyable experience. Possibly a different choice of producer might have encouraged a little more experimentation.
I suspect this is one last shot at reaching a wider audience, and it might achieve that, but all it managed to do for me was have me thinking of getting some Lightning Bolt on the stereo quick to blow away the cobwebs! I wouldn’t discourage anyone from giving this a listen, just don’t expect too much. Given the right promotional push or lucky break, it could do well for them, I wouldn’t begrudge them that opportunity.
