Ready To Move To The Next Level
CB6 are here to get in your face. There's no tip toeing round the houses before suddenly remembering to actually give us something to get to grips with like so many wannabe punk-metal bands tend to do; oh no CB6's debut album, Succession, goes straight for the jugular, bristling with menace, pounding with venom and threatening to pin you to the wall in a heartbeat – consider yourself warned.
Opening track, Perfect doesn't so much as kick things off but more like slams you to the floor and proceeds to pound the life out of you in such a way that you will be begging to hit the repeat button. Guitars flay, drums pummel and Ryan Monteith's vocals snarl, shout and growl with unmatched conviction and power, showing just how great British metal truly is. There is certainly a love for the history of the genre that shines throughout the album, offering up hints of 90s raw metal power amidst the more up to date touches akin to Gallows but CB6 manage to take all these influences and craft them into their own raw, aggressive and entirely engaging sound that commands merit and attention. With a crunchy, bass driven core melded to riffs that transform from Korn-esque metal madness to an almost Machine Head rush of pure finger defying drama, Clocks manages to weave brilliantly from one metal genre to another in the less than five minutes, even throwing in a hint of Limp Bizkit bass tones in for good measure, making for one hell of an exciting listen.
Indeed CB6 ooze a sense of vitality and urgency throughout the majority of Succession's tracks. Cold Season may only weigh in at just over three minutes but it is a colossal chunk of heaving ferociousness that seems to get bigger and bigger until it explodes magnificently whilst title track Succession blends the vibrant, raw brutality of Bring Me The Horizon with classic metal riffs to truly tantalise and thrill.
This being a debut, not everything is perfect; there are times when CB6 seem to lose their way slightly and certain tracks don't hold their own too well against more accomplished offerings. That said, even when things miss the mark, the quartet still create something that many new bands, and indeed established, can only dream of achieving and when considering all this was masterminded during a measly five days of recording at Bucks University, it puts many bands to shame.
Mixing the old with the new to create a sound which is very much their own, CB6's debut album should see them reaching a much wider audience, let's hope they have the chance to show all that British metal is alive and very much kicking and CB6 certainly look ready to ascend to the next level.