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You Me At Six are an English rock band from Surrey. Since forming in 2004, the band have enjoyed various successes with all of their albums (except their first) reaching the Top 5 of the UK Album Charts and their fourth album, Cavalier Youth, reached Number 1! Now, 2018 sees the band return with their aptly-named sixth studio album, VI. Here’s what we have to say about it…
One thing is for certain, this band are superb at adapting their sound and have continued to evolve throughout their already pretty lengthy career. Their previous album, Night People, received rather mixed reviews suggesting it was a rather disjointed effort – although credit to them for trying something new! However, this is all about to change with VI!
The album bursts into life with the very gritty and rather explosive ‘Fast Forward’, which sees Franceschi screaming, “Pour some gasoline on,” with his trademark gravelly voice. The track has highs and lows in all the right places – prominent, grungy synths make this a strong album opener…think U2 but heavier!
Next to follow is the hugely atmospheric, stadium-filler, ‘Straight To My Head’ with 80s-style synths, strong bass lines and an incredibly catchy, chant-able chorus – possibly the best track on the record.
There is a distinctly indie meets disco sound across the album too. Lead single ‘3AM’ epitomises the vibe of the record; like something by The Killers, The Maccabees or even Bastille maybe, with a running rhythm to the vocals, whilst ‘Back Again’ is possibly the most pop-like track on the album, seeing Franceschi using his falsetto – a great, feel-good track.
They’ve once again diversified their sound, kept it fresh and refused to stick to a sound that’s previously brought them success.
Possibly the weakest songs have to be ‘I O U’ – a bass-led affair that feels disjointed in places; it’s quite experimental, in that it changes pace and sound throughout. Also, ‘Predictable’ is quite similar to something by Arctic Monkeys; it’s a little droning and not particularly memorable. Whilst ‘Pray For Me’ is a wonderfully euphoric song but throughout feels like it’s going to a place that it never actually goes.
‘Danger’ instantly grabs your attention with a beat that starts almost identically to Toni Basil‘s ‘Mickey’, but quickly demonstrates it’s much more edgy than that. It’s an upbeat track with some incredible, diverse vocals – a really strong track!
Probably the most controversial song on the album, is closing track, ‘Losing You’ – it builds beautifully with some captivating vocal effects and all-consuming reverb on the synths and guitars. It is bound to be a real mixed-bag with the fans.
It has to be said that You Me At Six have done a superb job with this record – they’ve once again diversified their sound, kept it fresh and refused to stick to a sound that’s previously brought them success. They’re a band that press forward and continue to grow and VI clearly shows that the band have made an album they wanted to make – for that, they should be very proud.
Rating
‘VI’ is out now and can be downloaded from iTunes – https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/vi/1380831965
VI on Spotify
3AM (Official Video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrELmjpktYE
We hope you’ve enjoyed our review! What do you think of this band’s…? Are you as much of a fan as us? What would you rate it out of 5? Please leave your thoughts in a comment or via our social media.
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