The Boston Phoenix
February 5 - 12, 1998

[Loacl Rock]

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Six Going on Seven

by Carly Carioli

Well, jeez, they look like an emocore band, like they should sound like the Promise Ring or something. But for one thing there's no distortion, and for another, even in the modern world of willfully vexing melody-avoidance techniques, Six Going on Seven sound weird. Good weird. Like, when they did a cover of Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" it sounded perfectly natural, even though it wasn't, not by a long shot.

First things first: their debut album, Self-Made Mess (on Some Records, the label run by Quicksand's Walter Schreifels and CIV's Sam Seigler), charts the course of a guy for whom love hasn't worked out ("Happiness is method acting" and "I'm in love with a sinking ship" are two of the more upbeat lines). The resultant lack of closure is mirrored evasion for evasion by the music. Lack of emotional resolution begets a lack of melodic resolution, and yet both often seem so close you can taste it. So you end up on the edge of your seat the entire time, trying to keep up with the feints and trapdoors and buried hatchets.

Guitarist James Bransford came to rock via a stretch as a child blues prodigy touring Deep South jukes, followed by a composition degree at Berklee. Bassist/singer Josh English, who's got a hoarse/scratchy throat but can croon all smooth-like when he wants, played first fiddle in the Youth Symphony out in Portland, Oregon, before discovering punk rock. Drummer Will Bartlett is apparently some really smart-type guy too. The point being that their tools don't come from the same old toolbox, appearances in this case are more deceptive than usual, and past that you're gonna have to hear 'em to figure it all out. But mark these words: by the time they return from this national tour they're on, all the girls will be a-swoon, and the children will be throwing their stompboxes out the window.

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