6:33
Deadly Scenes

6:33 is very early in the morning, the time when industrial workers in this nation get out of bed or start their journey to work. It is a time before the sun rises at the time of the year this album is being released and it is also an amusing name for a band, I think however that I would have a different time but I am not that much into the kind of symmetry these guy’s band name uses. This is the third album by them and the first one I review, I heard the earlier album once or twice but never had time to review it. This one has an amusing artwork, quite telling of the lyrical content of the album. The label also has a ball writing the press information for the band, namedropping things like Devin Townsend, Corpse Bridge movie, LSD and such things along with names like Mr. Bungle and many more and when I am reading reviews and things around the web about this band these names like Mr. Bungle, Faith No More, Zappa and more pop up and maybe it is because the band is a tad difficult to describe – for the layman that is.

I on the other hand knows that it is Rock > Avantgarde / Experimental, because that is what the label says and it is for fans of CinC / Carnival In Coal, Mike Patton, Mr. Bungle, Devin Townsend. Now you have it, described in detail by a master of description had I written for a webzine with black background and white text and a name containing the word metal in some form. The thing is that it isn’t easy to describe what you get from this album because it is a melting pot of different influences, they span over different genres from a bit of gospel sounding stuff to darker extreme metal and almost everything in between. Not only that, there is female vocals, manly vocals, narrations, choirs and many other things done with voices, the songs are varied and for the layman unpredictable, the production is good and the soundscape exciting. There are many things that can be said about this album, but none of them can quite describe what you are going to experience while listening to the album, unless you take what the label says: “Experiencing a 6:33 album is like being on a bad LSD trip playing a Devin Townsend album while watching Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride”. Hellalujah for that, sounds exciting, or does it?

I don’t think so as I don’t like listening to an album while watching a movie as it lessens the experience of both. And it isn’t really that good a description either as there is nothing that is similar to a bad LSD-trip about this album, unless of course you think that predictability is one of the things a bad LSD-trip offers. For an album of this character it is quite predictable, that is something of a weaker point to me. Overall though I think the album is good, the 55 minute playing time works okay even though the ending 13 minute epic is a bit on the weaker side, it doesn’t play on the strengths of the band in a way that is working for me. The way they have managed to make an album that spans such a large musical span coherent has also unfortunately taken away the dynamics that is required to make an album like this work. The words in the press info are about graves; wickedness and clown noses seem to be more castles in the air than something with actual substance. That’s a bit of a shame but not that the album is bad as I still think that it is a fairly good one but not as good as I believe it could have been had the pieces of the jigsaw fitted better together.

The best song is the opening Hellalujah that is unpredictable, exciting and interesting – it is a song where the band comes alive and shows off their abilities in the best possible way. It is a shame that the rest of the album does not come up to the same standard as that first track. Which means that in the end we have a pretty good album here, they weave together different elements in a way that makes the illogical seem logical. They may be a bit predictable and not as funnily clown nosed as we were led to believe but that’s okay as I think it is an amusing enough album to merit the enjoyment for the fans of this kind of music.

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