Go forth and multiply

The Big Sound. The fierce angry post punk energy awash in dirty guitar haze and cosmic effects. What lazy hacks like myself might describe as Spiritualised meets The Stooges, or something to that effect. And while American groups the likes of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead are getting all the attention, a certain Nottingham quintet have been blazing this particular trail since the early nineties and they’re getting quite good at it by now.

Six By Seven had their first real taste of anything resembling success with their first self-released single ‘European Me’ in 1997, which NME hailed as “one of the all-time greatest debut singles.” The years since have been spent diligently transforming their valiant combustion of indie punk pop and prog rock excess into something far greater, sadly without a great deal of material gain to show for it. But perhaps their time is coming, since Six By Seven have just released their resplendent third album The Way I Feel Today.

Lead singer and main songwriter Chris Olley says he wouldn’t change a thing. “I’m quite happy the way we are. Well, I wouldn’t mind a bit more success - it’d be nice not to have to worry where the next record is coming from and to have more artistic freedom. But fuck it. You deal with what you get. At least we’ve made three albums now. I feel a band is only really established once they make their third album.”

According to Chris, there’s a lot of room for experimentation. “Most guitar music is ultra-conservative, and aimed solely at getting on playlists. I respect bands with a particular energy like ‘Trail of Dead. I’m also very into electronic stuff at the moment, like the new Boards of Canada album. When there’s no singing, there’s no date stamp, the boundaries are blurred and it’s more authentic.”

But singing is an important element on Six By Seven records, including their latest, with Chris’ lyrics projecting very personal shades of suicidal tendencies and relationship angst onto their dynamic wall of sound. “It’s a typical Six By Seven record,” he says, simplifying somewhat. “A variety of songs, some quiet, some building up into a bigger wash of noise. Plenty of unusual chord structures. My favourite song is ‘Anyway;’ it’s about yearning for somebody you once knew and wanting to meet up again ‘cause you’ve forgotten all the bad bits of the relationship.”

But he’d be willing to eschew lyrical content for the chance to do something different. “I’d love to make a totally electronic record,” he enthuses. Much to the chagrin of the record company, no doubt. “Yeah, that’s it,” he sighs. “Just as soon as we’re free of, er, contractual obligations. We’ve had three albums affected by commercial concerns - we’ve always been pushing for a hit - whereas I’d prefer to do something daring and different. Like make a series of films to go with the music and release them on DVD.”

At the moment, the only film Six By Seven are concerned with at present is the video for their current single ‘I.O.U. Love’, which is based on the classic horror sci-fi Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, and features ‘Alien’ Chris emerging from a pod, covered in slime. The clip has been banned by TV channels in most European countries for being ‘too dark,’ apart from the hardy Spaniards and Italians where MTV have kindly put it on rotation. “The director meant it to symbolise rebirth or something,” Chris explains ‘the pod’ theme. “But to me the song’s about how you can’t owe love, but how the person you love can be seen a metaphor for something greater, how the sky is blue and the stars are shiny when you’re in love. It’s a bit cheesy, but it’s like a way of owning your own world somehow.”