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PLATE SIX - BATTLE HYMNS FOR A NEW REPUBLIC
Hymn For Shedding Rust / As The Pinson Turns / Concrete Mouth Of Safety / Red: The New Black / The Unmoved Mover / Hymn Of The Majuscule / Losed / Instant Fence / The Unblinking Eye / Hymn To Denounce Time / Maximalist Anthem
ONE LITTLE INDIAN / BENT RAIL FOUNDATION
Hailing from Birmingham, Alabama, Plate Six are a three piece outfit clearly influenced by the art-noise likes of The Jesus Lizard, Polvo, Archers Of Loaf, Sonic Youth and the like. While dealing in a musical format that's been done to death over the past decade or so, Plate Six are a band doing things with such a sense of enthusiasm and commitment that new album BATTLE HYMNS FOR A NEW REPUBLIC ultimately wins you over by sheer force of personality and exuberance.
This is suitably chaotic and riotous stuff, songs like HYMN FOR SHEDDING RUST and AS THE PINSON TURNS; a cavalcade of multidirectional guitar salvos, wild rampaging drum beats and vocals that career and shudder, wince and howl. The lack of a bass player goes virtually unnoticed, Plate Six making such a full bloodied art-rock racket that such things are left largely unimportant.
Plate Six can do multidirectional math rock like the best of them, at times echoing the sparse beauty and extended guitar excursions of Yo La Tengo, at others exploding into noisy abrupt alt-punk like the Archers Of Loaf - leaving the extended coda to mesmerise with its cyclical magnetism. HYMN OF THE MAJUSCALE, much like most of the Lee Renaldo penned material from Sonic Youths' Goo, burns with intense guitar abuse - molten riffs erupting from the calm of the quieter moments in time to rip your brain from your skull and burn your synapses. LOSED, more attuned to Blonde Redheads style of unusual vocal gymnastics - grooves along on more dissonant guitars and diverse drum directions. It's something Plate Six do again on INSTANT FENCE, David Hickox again stretching his voice off in a million different directions, never someone to rest on his laurels.
While Plate Six's sound can be traced back to a variety of sources, most obvious and apparent - Sonic Youth, The Jesus Lizard and Polvo, these are all reference points that are never unwelcome and always an extremely good thing in the right hands. These are songs that are gloriously off-kilter slices of alt-pop genius, the kind of stuff to lend itself to cult worship. Like most the best things, Plate Six are one of those bands destined to reside in the realms of underground glory.
BIOGRAPHY
Plate Six are David Hickox (vocals, guitar and permanent Dan Sartain bass player) 29, Darryl Jacks (guitars) 30, and Brad Davis (drums) 31.
All three are natives from Birmingham Alabama.
The band met each other and Dan Sartain while they were all at high school. The band started here, forming officially in 1999.
Over the years they flirted around with four different bass players before deciding for a few years that 'bass players were worthless and it was no advantage to put up with them any longer' and became the three-piece line-up they are now: vocals, two guitars and a drummer.
The band was influenced in the early days by bands such as Fugazi to do the most they could with just a guitar and an amp and not to use effects, and also by way of the wandering guitar work of (Southern/Touch & Go's) Polvo and the noise and chaos of Sonic Youth. By relentlessly playing in the hardcore punk scene in small key venues, headlining or opening for bands such as Boris and Fugazi they were able to create a solid fan base for themselves in this burgeoning Alabama scene.
Both Plate Six and Dan Sartain had releases on The Bent Rail Foundation: a Birmingham Alabama label started by Hickox, Jacks and Jacks' brother from a zine much the same way as Seattle's stalwart Sub-pop label. After putting out two 7"s and an early album, they decided they had enough connections to help and release other bands. The band shared work duties at their new label; David Hickox stood at the helm of the art and creative side and Darryl Jacks handled the more business related side of things.
LINE UP
David Hickox
Darryl Jacks
Brad Davis
DISCOGRAPHY
BATTLE HYMN FOR A NEW REPUBLIC (One Little Indian/Bent Rail Foundation>2007)
Hymn For Shedding Rust
As The Pinson Turns
Concrete Mouth Of Safety
Red: The New Black
The Unmoved Mover
Hymn Of The Majuscule
Losed
Instant Fence
The Unblinking Eye
Hymn To Denounce Time
Maximalist Anthem
LINKS
Plate Six>www.platesix.org
FURTHER LISTENING
Archers Of Loaf
Sonic Youth
Polvo
Review date: February 2007 |
