Six By Seven - The Things We Make

8.0 - England - 1998

What is this, nineties week at The 'Staff? Perhaps. In any event, this is not a collection of six tunes by a septet, but rather the debut album from the Nottingham band that emerged towards the end of the nineties. Sort of a missing link between early nineties shoegaze and millenial post-rock, Six By Seven traded in atmospheric layers of distorted guitar drones. All the songs here, even the more up-tempo "rockers", are slow burns that unfold deliberately, as sheets of sound build together into a glorious squall of metallic haze. There is a saxophonist in the band, which is usually a bit of a red flag, but the horn acts as just another drone that fits in neatly with the e-bows and fuzz. The vocals are a bit of a lowpoint (and some lyrical naffery), but that's okay as the moody mainspring Chris Olley admits on "88-92-96": "I'm just a white singer with no tone in my voice" and then adds "I still can't stand the sound of my only voice." Cheer up, Chris; you did put together a pretty solid debut. Hearing this record again now after many years does make me want to check out of the rest of group's work...