Album Review: You Me At Six - 'SUCKAPUNCH'
You Me At Six’s upcoming seventh album, SUCKAPUNCH, is as eclectic as it is brilliant, showing that the Surrey quintet are still as triumphantly strong as ever.
Released in the latter half of 2018, You Me At Six’s sixth album, appropriately titled VI, saw a shift in the band’s dynamics. Pop and electro influences started to permeate their music, meandering in and out of their songs like a caged viper. Little could be seen of their initial, pop-punk esque ‘Take Off Your Colours’ era; and, though tracks such as Fast Forward and Predictable harked back to the heaviness of Sinners Never Sleep, the album never seemed to truly reinvent the band. Rather, it acted more like a bridge between the old and the new.
SUCKAPUNCH, then, welcomes in this ‘new’, offering a fully fledged reinvention. As well as creating new versions of its old flagships — the poignant and emotional Finish What I Started, for instance, feels like an instant classic with its echoing harmonies, roared yet despondent vocals, and staccato drum beat — the band tread on entirely fresh ground.
Some songs, as expected, aren’t revolutionary in their influences. Beautiful Way, with its perfectly toed mixture of heavy and soft dynamics, quick yet noticeably electro-tinged build-up, and angst-fuelled lyrics, seems an instant classic for the band; however, it fails to come across as much of a departure from the norm.
Enter the album’s first single, What’s It Like. Released around the time of their triumphant main stage sets at Reading and Leeds in 2019, it has only been seen a few times live as of yet (for obvious reasons); the last of which, their headline set at Gunnersville, saw it ending their set and, in a way, prophetically bringing in their new era as a band. The song slithers, full of synth, as it builds towards a drop that perfectly juggles a need to dance with a need to mosh. The electronic influences are paramount, here, while retaining Josh’s signature, almost-breathless voice; it seems closer to a track to soundtrack Wireless Festival than to precede the Oli Sykes featuring Bite My Tongue. Which it did, triumphantly, at Reading.
But the band’s change-up doesn’t stop here, as nearly the entire rest of the album plays to the band’s need to innovate. There’s the almost punkish, scream-laden MAKEMEFEELALIVE, with harsh, discordant shouts of pure fury over jarring guitar riffs and trashy drum beats: the band doing all it says on the tin and more; on the other side of the spectrum is the R&B influenced WYDRN, a hazy, almost trap-based tune full of drum pads and doubt.
Meanwhile, title track SUCKAPUNCH wouldn’t look out of place in a nightclub: full of bass with a catchily cathartic chorus and self-assuredly angry lyrics, it’s the perfect tune to jump to and rage with. ‘I wasn’t born yesterday’, Josh sings, both as a soundtrack to his cynicism in the song and a tongue-in-cheek reference to the band’s longevity and need to rise from the wreckage left behind.
The most surprising inclusion here, though, seems to be Kill The Mood: a smooth and jazzy affair with flairs of Bowie, by way of Arctic Monkeys’ most recent album. With its inclusion of lofty and echoed vocals, whistling guitar and a slowly languishing drum beat, it’s an unexpected gem.
Yet it’s on the more familiar ground that the band truly excel. In Glasgow, opening with a somber, almost Radiohead-tinged reverb, we see Josh at his most vulnerable. Slow, ponderous and emotional, the song is despairing in its beauty; the bridge acts as almost a moment of self-defacing defence for a partner that no longer feels the same as you. It’s the closest thing to a ballad that the album has — but it’s after the nearly silent death throes of the relationship, as Josh admits he had ‘forever in mind’, that the song explodes and truly reaches its own. Think Sinners Never Sleep’s Crash, and keep going.
Voicenotes, too, is a standout. With instrumentals straight out of early 2000s Nü Metal, the song acts almost as Glasgow’s counterpart. ‘When I’m at rock bottom, I’ve got nothing left to lose. When self doubt creeps in... it makes me feel this way’ Josh shouts, gradually increasing in vitriol over the four minute long track, rising to a crashing crescendo that disappears as soon as it arrives.
Out of all of them, though, it’s Finish What I Started that serves as the crowning triumph of the album. Josh’s lyrics, spat out in a staccato rapid fire, are as relatable as they are exposed. They signify a man at the end of his tether; the song is urgent, a soundtrack to both his fall and his brutal, seemingly impossible rise. ‘Are you the one that feels empty inside’, Josh asks, admitting that he ‘needs to stop’. And though the chorus starts similarly bleak, with Josh angrily pleading, knowing he’s ‘not the only one/ who feels that the time has come’, it’s ultimately inspiring; a call to arms for a broken generation to pick themselves up and rebuild. It’s a hard track to listen to, making it all the more powerful... and rewarding.
SUCKAPUNCH is a brilliant album. It’s impossible to call it a seminal work — such an accolade only comes with hindsight — but it’s certainly a landmark in their career. As soon as the riff heavy, scream-laden Nice To Me kicks in, it’s obvious that this is the same band soundtracking lives for nearly two decades; but SUCKAPUNCH reflects a band constantly changing, constantly incorporating and assimilating new ideas, and a band consistently hungry for more.
Words by James O’Sullivan