The visible band
"It's never been easy for us, because we've never really been an easily accessible band. But we seem to be noticing it more now on the third album, because to be honest, by the time of your third album you really should be out there."
Six By Seven are a band split; not between themselves, but between the pleasure they can take from the critical acclaim they have been receiving since their debut album The Things We Make, and the frustration they feel that as of yet they have failed to make the breakthrough to a wider audience. Mark Beaumont, in a recent edition of NME, implored somebody to go back to 2000 and discover Six By Seven properly. Though current album The Way I Feel Today has, in less than a month, sold more than their debut and its follow-up The Closer You Get, it has still failed to make any real impact on the charts. Their last single, 'I.O.U.Y', missed out on the Top Forty by just a few hundred sales. "That was so fucking annoying", concedes keyboardist James Flower, "I think we do need to break through to a slightly wider audience. I hate to say that, but when you're making a living out of being in a band, it's important. I've got a kid, Chris [Olley, singer] has got kids...it's just a shit business". At this point not only do you realise that these guys are hardly spring chickens, all in their mid-thirties, but that they've got more resting on their vocation than most. "Hopefully this album's a little bit more commercial than the last one though". This apparently has absolutely nothing to do with the artwork's suspicious (and self-acknowledged) similarity to that of Travis' The Invisible Band, however; the important difference being that "ours is much better".
And those four words actually sum up almost everything about Six By Seven's work. Making the new album, however, was not trouble-free. The departure of guitarist Sam Hempton following Glastonbury 2000 was a highly significant moment in the story of the band; their separation does not seem to have been as amicable as the record company would like to make out. "There was a bit of a fall-out", reveals Flower, "but I don't want to go into details". It can be little surprise then that The Way I Feel Today contains some of their most passionate material, from the ferocious punk rock of 'Flypaper For Freaks' to the brooding epic that is 'American Beer'; not a political track, but one which has a strange resonance post-September 11th. The title track is a string-heavy organic masterpiece, while first single 'So Close' opens with a dark and threatening piano line before building to a bitter wall of noise. All are performed tonight unerringly tightly, to a pretty packed downstairs Zodiac, and with no holding back from the huge figure of behemoth frontman Chris Olley. "I never thought that it would end like this", he screams as 'American Beer' reaches its immense conclusion. Not only do they play well, they play damn loud, a fact summed up by James: "I like loud music; I think it sounds much better when it's properly loud". And straight from the off it was. The bass-driven 'Another Love Song' set the precedent for the night, inducing some genuine indie-dancing amongst the faithful - not just an indie-shuffle, but a genuine indie-dance, whilst the cyclical 'Ten Places To Die' rose up as a sprawling cathartic monolith, its thunderous conclusion stopping dead all of those in the audience who were unprepared for it. This is a band for whom everything is real; the anger, the noise, the emotion, and in fifteen years' time they will be recognised as one of the most important bands of the last five years. A little bit of recognition now, though, would hardly go amiss.
25th Apr 2002