I didn’t know a lot about Six Foot Six, but here’s the low down on what I’ve been able to find out: this is their third album, and guitarist and vocalist Kristoffer Gobel was briefly the vocalist for Falcolner. He’s joined by Christoffer Borg on the other guitar, and Markus Gustaffson on bass. For this record, they’ve only managed to get the one and only Snowy Shaw (Mercyful Fate, King Diamond and 2674674 other bands) on drums. They are from Sweden, and thus, as you might expect, have a great ear for melody.
In terms of what you get with Beggar’s Hill? Well, it’s music that sits somewhere between hard rock, power metal and good old fashioned heavy metal. I have to say right off the bat that the production here is tremendous: listening to the album through a pair of decent headphones, and it’s that punchy I feel like I’ve just gone twelve rounds with Tyson Fury. There’s some serious heft to the rhythm section, and there’s also tasty guitar riffs to be found throughout. One of the standouts is the brilliantly infectious “Voices Inside”, which has an almost Middle-Eastern melody running throughout, and is perfectly accompanied by Gobel’s soaring, optimistic vocals.
As I listened to the record, I kept coming back to comparisons to Demons & Wizards, the occasional collaboration between Iced Earth and Blind Guardian band members. This is really too muscular a record to be a true power metal album (listen, for example, to the churning main riff in “Riding the Tide”), but there are undeniable influences from that genre; the vocals are clean, high but powerful, and the twin guitar melodies are ever present. The album even features three inter-connected songs at the end of the album that tell the story of a Templar (“The Prodigy”, “The Siege” and “The Homecoming” respectively).
There are so many well written songs on this ten tracker that it’s hard to pick out a favourite, but “The Prodigy” is, for me, the capstone of this release. It has everything; a singable chorus, the kind of axe work that makes my head nod involuntarily, and a rhythm section that’s bang on the money. Sometimes it doesn’t work quite as well for my ears; “Analog Man” sounds a bit too much like an entry to the Eurovision Song Contest for me, but in general the quality is set to a high standard and keeps it there.
You want quality, solid, memorable and cleanly sung heavy metal? Give this a crack.
(7/10 Chris Davison)
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