Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The sound of electricity, of power humming in a variable pitch of good and the beautiful is always at odds with the thought that we could be living in a Cold Damn Season, not one caused by weather or the universal atmosphere but the static that grows and festers when nations collide, when families are at war or when governments start to alienate certain sections of society; a cold war, a cold front, all can be heated and charged within a moment’s notice, within the pause for breath and one that SixStringNoise fully grasp in their tremendous album Cold Damn Season.
The fear of any exchange heating up rapidly, out order and control descending into the flames of chaos is always one that is at the back of the mind, it festers like a dormant virus, it waits for the host to feel complacent and secure enough before it attacks; it is the war in which a cold front disappears and fades in the atomic dust.
Music on the other hand, especially within the realm of Metal needs to feel supercharged, it requires the freedom to take that atomic dust and scatter it throughout a possible album, to radiate depth of anger and sublime beauty where it must; the Cold Damn Season of time without a band understanding and utilising their own choice of weapons against the lazy and death defying period of chilly, unfeeling wastelands is never too far away and in SixStringNoise there are a stet of heroes willing to push the button of button against unrelenting apathy.
In tracks such as Caledonian, Things Went South, the fantastic The Broken Homes, Meth Lab and Keep The Change, SixStringNoise strike a match, light the fuse and stand waiting for the powder keg, the explosion to hammer home and relish the noise, the clamour of heated music exchange, the cold war at an end, what follows is the result of feeding non–enlightening pap to a generation who only see music as a disposable commodity; SixStringNoise invite you to live in the fire, to breathe in the smoke and above all remember that the Cold Damn Season is only a prelude to a summer of blazing heat.
Ian D. Hall