Things you can't do while listening to XBXRX's new record, Sixth in Sixes: Read a book, do your homework, sit in your cubicle, clean house, doze off on the couch, plan your vacation, entertain guests for dinner, bob your head (with or without your arms folded), snap your fingers, tap your feet.
No passive response can be taken to XBXRX's racket. Sixth in Sixes is not background noise; it's simply noise. Don't take that as negative-- if teeth-gnashing catharsis through guitar is your idea of fun, then this record is fun as hell. If not, it's over quickly. Throughout the entire 25-minute duration of these 18 tracks, guitars thrash in thin, abrasive approximations of hardcore and acid-fried rock, the drums batter new rhythms every few seconds, and the singer squeals righteously about progress, corruption, and the decline of civilization. On the final song, "In Memory of Our Lives", you can even make out what he's saying.
Sixth in Sixes may have sounded like a wall of hysterics at first, but a few more listens and the complexity started to seep in. This is the band's second record, and they sound more mature and generally more competent at playing than on 2001's Gop Ist Minee, if no less confrontational. Reunited with drummer Weasel Walter, XBXRX can pull off tricks like moving from an overstimulated boogie to a three-chord whirling dervish spitting out bent notes on "Gold Cross", and jerk to the Devo-through-the-wood-chipper rhythms on "Fabricated Progression". There's even two tracks longer than two minutes with discernable melodies. (I guess you call that "artistic growth.")
The chaos of "Beat Rolls on" is grounded by the minimal stomp of the rhythm section, and the obligatory change in rhythm sounds built up to and earned, as if we followed the band instead of being repeatedly slapped by them. "In Memory of Our Lives" is a superb closer, leaving the listener with the album's best hook and most direct vocals. Anchored by a constant fourth-note bassline, the singing loses none of its frenzy, but becomes abundantly clear: "The liars, the killers/ The ones who sold our lives/ Making profits, hitting targets/ Leaving every child behind."
XBXRX's live performances are notoriously chaotic (enough to supposedly get the group banned from Canada), and while catching one of their shows may make a great story to tell the next day, the album is nothing to write home about. Sixth in Sixes is gleefully relentless, but songs like "Beat Rolls on" and "In Memory of Our Lives" are an inkling that XBXRX are capable of much more. They're also the only evidence the band is making records for posterity, and not just for a souvenir from the show.
