Album Review: While She Sleeps – This Is The Six (Search And Destroy)

I’m not a fan of hardcore music; I just can’t get along with the shouting as loud as you can over the music as possible without a care for rhythm or melody. This dislike is so strong that when I hear that a band is considered a hardcore band it automatically puts me off & I won’t go near them. Does this mean I’m missing potential great bands? Yes, but it wasn’t something I cared about until I decided to take a punt on While She Sleeps debut album, This Is The Six.

While She Sleeps has opened my eyes to a style of hardcore that resonates deeply within me. Mixing heavy hardcore vocals, riffs a-plenty, killer breakdowns & a piano (yeah, you read that right) This Is The Six is an absolute revelation.

Opener Dead Behind The Eyes is one of the more frantic songs on the album & sets the bar high from the off. False Freedom follows this up with more of the same before the song takes a drastic swerve setting up a head-banging finish. Satisfied in Suffering is one for the pit while Seven Hills has sing-along written all over it.

Our Courage, Our Cancer opens with a piano medley before exploding with fury but is over-shadowed by the title track, This Is The Six, a slab of pure circle pit heaven & a nice & simple shout along chorus. The halfway point of the album is met with a 2 minute-ish instrumental that calms things down nicely & leads brilliantly into Be(Lie)ve a song aimed at the more hardcore edge of the fan base, it’s still bloody brilliant though!

Until The Death really showcases the death metal credentials the band has, possibly the heaviest song on the album while Love At War is probably my favourite song on the album. A catchy chant mixed with piano melody before kicking off into an absolutely killer riff. It’s the sort of song that makes me wonder how non-metal fans can’t get into this.

The final double header of The Plague of a New Age & Reunite finish off the album in style showcasing everything you’ve heard up to this point & hammering it home.

Phew….

If I had heard this album when it came out last year it would probably have been my number 1 album of the year, it is that good. When an album can change the way you think about a certain sub-genre of heavy metal then that album is pretty damn special.