The seven tracks of this CD release sound more like an enthusiastic and talent-strewn demo than a genuine commercial release. PR and website support have a similar "is this how you're supposed to do it?" feel. And that's what attracts me. Blundering about in the dark as they seem to be, seventimesnothing are successfully crashing into some fairly expensive pieces of the rock furniture. The damage and the results are worthy of some of our time. Well, quite a lot of our time, I'd say.
The image I get (all the lights being switched off, remember?) is that we have a very young band, emerging from early-teen infatuation with nameless metal/death metal/emo guitar bands and stumbling into a parallel universe of their own creation – as if post rock needed to be started all over again. They don’t know it’s post rock of course, because there's no sign of them being ready to get rid of teen angst lyrics and the light-voiced screamo vocals just yet. But the untitled seventh track makes it clear that they are very interested in exploring noisescapes and angle-grinding industrial analogues of the chuggachuggachugga antics of Sepultura or whoever. That one track makes it clear that sixty percent of their other stuff is pretty pointless. As long as they have the courage to let go.
That being said, chunks of fresh sound are there right from the start of Track One, and into Track Two. But Track Three really sets it up differently with some niftily math-oriented syncopation in the guitar introduction and some wonderfully unhinged bass playing that sounds like the strings are about to unwind.
Track Four leaves the rails by another yard or two, with a lovely dry rim shot intro accompanied by pummelling floor toms and a great drawn out fuzz guitar lead. Unhappily, the voice still sounds forced and small-chested, like a defiant, bullied oddball about to be pulverised by the school's Nu Metal bully. Maybe that's the appeal. This band are playing with someone else's dynamite and it could seriously explode at any minute.
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Straight into Track Five, the off-centre curiosity goes a bit further into the void. But the convention that high notes held across a bar or two equals melodic is faithfully observed. This alternates with a the screamo chorus that represents dramatic tension in the live set. And then, three minutes into the four minutes 24 seconds of the track we get the real transition to something exciting with chords in the bass and a change of tempo. It disappears again for another yellsome chorus, but our ears have really found something now, and we want this band to come into their own.
Track Six encourages the thought with some shredded-up mixing from beginning to end. The band have become very interesting by now, and you really want them to go back and erase all the formula stuff and pick up again where this edgier, more fractured stuff begins. Bands like LES SAVY FAV, OXES, THUNDERBOLT, KILL YOURSELF, DUGONG and their loosely co-ordinated fellow travellers could be picking up another companion on the long journey out of "Smoke on the Water".
I'd say that seventimesnothing are finding a voice that could be loud, clear and exciting. To find Track Seven you need to scroll on to seven minutes 45 seconds of Track Six. Sorry, but you do need to. Hiding it was the only dumb thing on the CD. It combines menace and fun in a thoroughly engaging way.
The track titles include "Leash", "Exit", "Buried and Forgotten", "Strychnine", Introversion" and "Codes". Which is which, we will discover when the lights go back on, I'm sure.
Approach them via www.seventimesnothing.co.uk
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