Ben Chasny has always been an unsettled artist. In his work as Six Organs of Admittance, he refuses to stay in one place for long, darting between folk, rock, psych, and noise from album to album and song to song. But Hexadic is his first record that actually sounds unsettling. His guitar playing is desperate and cutting—a fiery, jagged rip that recalls Japanese air-piercers like Keiji Haino and KK Null. On the more hectic tracks, Chasny and his band approach the aggressive howl of drowned-in-the-red acts like Sightings and Harry Pussy. But even when they swing slower and sparser, the music remains harrowing, more bent on disturbing than soothing.
The constantly-disruptive feel of Hexadic makes it perhaps the most consistent Six Organs albums to date. There’s a real sense of aesthetic purpose here; though none of Chasny’s work has ever sounded non-commital, his dedication to one guitar approach creates thorough cohesion, gluing all nine tracks together under one communal vibe. That effect was likely enhanced by Chasny’s self-devised songwriting system, one that even inspired him to create his own set of Six Organs playing cards. But this method seems more about creating a frame of mind than hewing to specific rules, as the resulting music sounds ready and willing to go anywhere.
That openness allows Chasny and his colleagues—including his Comets on Fire bandmate Noel Von Harmonson on drums—to play patiently and thoughtfully. Even when they’re smashing into a crescendo, it feels like a natural, well-worn state rather than a rushed attempt to force frenzy. In a way they come off like an athlete who’s so calm under pressure her heartbeat hardly varies whether she’s winning easily or taken down to the wire. So even though Hexadic bears an ominous, sometimes even disorienting tone, there’s a placidity to the proceedings that keeps the music more welcoming than confrontational. It reminds me of how Neil Young’s noisiest songs sway rather than crash, more reflective than assaultive, despite all the sonic debris.
In Hexadic’s best songs, the reflective and the assaultive are two sides of a coin. The heavy march of "Hollow River" is both turgid in Chasny’s dense distortion and spacious in its elongated beat. "Guild" creates a similar atmosphere before retreating subtly into dry, open spaces, while "Future Verbs" is almost all open spaces, like a spaghetti Western theme stretched into suspense-movie tension. Other tunes are more blunt, terrorizing attacks—take the pummeling grind of "Sphere Path Code C" or the aptly-titled "Maximum Hexadic"—yet still somehow feel measured, perhaps just by association.
Whether those destructive sides of Hexadic will appeal to anyone not already initiated into the Six Organs circle is hard to guess. You could even imagine some fans of Chasny’s folkier side balking at the relentlessness of his dark-lensed vision here. But such concerns seem beside the point; if Chasny was worried about maintaining or growing an audience, he wouldn’t have made so many unpredictable choices and opposing moves while crafting one of the most unique discographies of the past 15 years. And besides, you might not have guessed Hexadic would sound like this, but you won’t be surprised that it sounds this good.
