SIX. BY SEVEN - Love And Peace And Sympathy

Kategorie: CD-Reviews | Genre: Artrock | Heft: Jahrgang 2013, eclipsed Nr. 153 / 9-2013 | VÖ-Jahr: 2013 | Wertung: 8/10 | Label: Borrowed Tune | Autor: SaS


Since 1996, Chris Olley and his comrades-in-arms have released six albums with long, atmospheric songs that unmistakably breathed the spirit of My Bloody Valentine. Six. By Seven, however, was always a fragile construct that disintegrated several times until Mastermind Olley drew a line in 2008. His strange attempt to reanimate the band without drummers in 2011 led surprisingly to a full reunion and one year later, after a short rethink, to the entry of the grandiose former placebo drummer Steve Hewitt. This was also the beginning of this comeback album of the English - their first studio work in six years - whose nine songs are guaranteed to blow away even the last doubters. "Love And Peace And Sympathy" is definitely not an attempt to ride the Drone/ Shoegaze wave after the unexpected comeback of My Bloody Valentine and the success of the last Swans album. Rather, it is the powerful sign of life of a group that simply continues to do its thing. The album contains an irrepressible energy, which is not least due to Hewitt's powerful, yet always subtle drumming. Above all, however, Chris Olley manages to convey great emotions in all her bandwidths: The slowly increasing opener "Change" with the desperate cry "I don't want to make you change" at the end sets the direction. The poppy "Sympathy" would recommend itself as a single, if it wouldn't get louder and louder towards the end, if the guitar wouldn't burst into hundreds of balls like a shrapnel. In between the rough punkrock of "More" or the "The Rise And Fall Of Everything" reminiscent of Springsteen. Olley and his band succeed in playing atmospheric rock music, which, while adopting the guitar walls and the repetitive of dronerock, at the same time performs the trick of being melodic and catchy. The album also gives a central role to the thoughtful lyrics, which are elementary for understanding the music.

Top track: Truce

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