Here come the angry young men and my, how angry they are.
Six By Seven were, on the evidence of 1998 hypno-rock debut album 'The Things We Make', prepared to lay themselves bare across music's rail tracks, in a sacrificial bid to demand more, faster, better.
Well, two years on, they actually appear to be running head-on towards the speeding train, sweat dripping from their faces and insanity blasting from their eyes.
'The Closer You Get' is a feast of corrugated energy and untameable fury. It's the point where the Sex Pistols and Spiritualized meet, scorching through a shattered mind and busted sound system. The punches starts to fly immediately and for the next 45 minutes, salvation is not found in reticent kiss-offs or quiet corners, but in embracing the vitriolic protest and poise.
Opener 'Eat Junk Become Junk' sets the bludgeoning tone early, unleashing an incessant squall of punishing guitars, processed fuzz bass and a sneering theory not, presumably, about food abuse, rather becoming what you consume. The pace heightens on the fantastically titled proto-punk of 'Sawn-Off Metallica T-Shirt', where frontman Chris Olly's electric anger is driven forwards by firebomb rhythms and jagged disjointed guitars.
Elsewhere, in their more drawn-out explorations, where Six By Seven have previously flourished, they are no less effective is not so preoccupied. 'Ten Places To Die' is a charming example, as Olly's falsetto envisages a path littered with inevitable doom - 'on a TV screen, in a crazy game, in complete and utter vein' - the sonic power unravelling gently into complete and absolute rolling power. The album's centrepiece, 'My Lie Is An Accident' is similarly entrancing, as the layers of guitar culminate in a wall of white noise as claustrophobic as they are magnificently wide-screen.
At times, and not just musically, 'The Closer You Get' is harsh listening: Olly descends further into oblivion than even he's ventured before on 'On Easy Ship Away', seemingly entering the mind - if it's not his own - of a suicide victim - 'I'm not sad now, putting a gun to my head'. But while such traumatised and graphic realisations may seem too horrific to bear, Six By Seven infuse these horrors with a blistering musical and lyrical dynamic matched by few of their peers.
Thankfully, 2000 has already witnessed the tame, anaesthetised sting of modern rock music being drawn by the insistent call-to-arms of the likes of Primal Scream and Asian Dub Foundation. Six By Seven stand proudly and bravely alongside them.
