The Delgados / Six By Seven
Wolverhampton Varsity
As we arrive fifteen minutes into Six By Seven's set the first thing that is abundantly noticeable is quite how many people have squeezed into the Varsity to see them. The place is packed. However, it's not just packed by people but by a dense guitar sound and muggy atmosphere that makes it feel like you are walking into a sticky fog. Six By Seven's songs work on the simple principle that if you keep to one or, at most, two chords and just build and build on your sound then most people will get the point. The tension builds through each track as their lanky, impassioned frontman adds his vocals which switch from high pitched singing to pained shouting as the swirling sound behind him reaches its peak. Of the new British bands worth bothering about Six By Seven are perhaps the most emotionally powerful and wilfully noisy. Where the Beta Band impress with their whimsical experimentation and lunatic grasp of pop dynamics, Six By Seven take the lessons learnt by guitar innovators Sonic Youth and The Jesus and Mary Chain and produce something resolutely theirs which reverberates with soulful passion.
This makes following them a difficult task and the Delgados don't do themselves any favours by specialising in a very 'nice' form of indie pop. Although they have an abundance of tunes their wilfully obtuse changes from fast to slow and quiet to noisy makes them difficult to appreciate live. Halfway through the set they play an absolutely beautiful song that makes the best of all their considerable talents. However, what surrounds it is too often self indulgent and fey. The male singer seems not to have noticed that he's wearing a polo neck. At some points it seems to sum the band up.
