"England needs you!" screams a voice from the crowd half way through Six By Seven's set at the Wedgewood Rooms on Sunday night.
"Yeah, England needs us man. There's nothing else left. That is unless you want to listen to Travis all the time!" frontman Chris Olly fires back before launching their antidote to the rock ballad 'Oh! Dear'.
The exchange sums something up about Six By Seven. Pessimistic, bleak lyrics focus on themes such as crap relationships and suicide, hang over a wall of sound, all thrashy guitars and shrill feedback. Six By Seven are the antithesis of Brit pop, the anti-Travis.
Firing off with the industrial noise and angry young man attitude of '10 Places to Die' the band go about their business with a feverish intensity. Since their 1998 debut album, Six By Seven have learnt a few tricks. A sharper, punkier edge has emerged to crash across their music. They fly through 'Candlelight', 'Slab' and 'Brilliantly Cute' without pausing for breath. Nihilistic anthems played with the nervous intensity of the condemned.
There's something instantly familiar to Six By Seven, they hit a chord with a range of paranoid and insecure tracks. England may need them but it would take a country like England to produce them in the first place, introspective and self depreciating.
Singer Chris Olly dominates proceedings with the rare stage presence of a genuine star, his vocals ranging from tormented screams to falsetto melodies without hesitation as he lays his soul bare.
Big bass and dancey beats motor alongside the acoustic offensive launched by guitarist Sam Hempton and keyboardist /sampler James Flower to form the core of 'Love Song', a cynical piss take of the music industry. "Write another love song.. nothing sad," screams Chris Olly, throwing himself across the tiny stage.
There's still time for a return to old favourites 'Sawn Off Metallica T-Shirt' and 'Something Wild' to end the set. An encore is duly demanded and produced, "We will come back to your house if you have any drugs," Olly tells the audience before the band throw themselves into the head-banging finale of 'Success'.
The band stumble off stage to yet more applause, something Olly continues to play to chucking his sweaty T-shirt into the pit before returning to the stage seconds later streaking across it stark bollock naked. A showman in more than one sense of the word.
