Review Summary: Yeah, senseless aggression, yeah!!!
There’s a somewhat disturbing trend on the rise in the hardcore genre nowadays. This is a trend that began with the more modern wave of the genre and is gathering steam as it ascends further to ungodly levels of popularity. It seems to be becoming an accepted motif on the hardcore scene, at least amongst younger teen fans, and in my opinion, it’s giving hardcore music a bad name. What I speak of is the belief some bands seem to hold, that sheer animalistic aggression is a worthy substitute for music ability. I suppose on the surface, it may appear to be a fair mistake to make; the music sounds abrasive and is obviously geared towards those who enjoy getting pumped, so why not capitalise on that one specific element of hardcore music? Because, hypothetical version of myself, this completely undermines everything that hardcore stands for. The most prominent symbols and statements made by important bands in the movement are symbols of empowerment and, although it’s a theme that’s been crushed up, recycled, and sometimes expressed in bewilderingly ill-fitting ways, hope. One of hardcore’s most famous bands, Terror, famously iterated ‘From the gutters we rose’, concisely encapsulating the ideal of hardcore as a conveyance of ability, and the ownership of a voice that has a right to be heard. Becoming more, becoming someone, but most importantly, remaining true to the cause. Sensibilities that are nearly so cliché they’re in hell kicking it with hair metal and emotional rollercoasters, but Six Ft Ditch appear to be oblivious to them. Six Ft Ditch resemble a psychopath’s outlet; a vicious, unforgiving, one-joke band with naught but a shred of irony about them.
With album titles as eyebrow-raisingly banal as
Unlicensed Cemetery and
Recreational Violence Six Ft Ditch add a new, decidedly more death metal-sounding title of
Voices From An Evil God to their discography. Having being referred to as ‘murdercore’, the band play a heavy beatdown style of hardcore and sing (shout) about death. Murder, mostly. The hilariously off-kilter second track ‘Six Feet Deep’ is crushing barrage of unlistenable downtuned grating, accompanied by some lyrical traits seemingly lifted from an old N.W.A. track. There’s only so many contexts when lyrics such as, ‘That’s right mutha***as, I’m about to start ***. I am ***ing up your day, and I am ***ing your bitch. You should have left the room when you had the ***ing chance,’ can be spoken aloud with a straight face, never mind any shadow of hinted seriousness. But, serious they are, and the delightful video for this song features the band appearing in a variety of apparently low-cost settings (including a graveyard, which is edgy beyond words), usually with bandanas covering the lower halves of their faces, looking like an extremely noisy street gang who won’t stop bothering people trying to pay their last respects. It's difficult to believe that the video is supposed to be serious, but if it's not, what's the message, or even the point? The experience of listening to
Voices From An Evil God could perhaps be compared to the not altogether pleasant experience of being shouted at in the face. The image I retain when I close my eyes listening to this album is that of the lead singer; the beret-wearing yet somehow impossibly thuggish 'Peachy', standing at my height, uncomfortably close, yelling into my face. I picture gestures and angry hand movements, head jerks and kicks, but that's it. There’s no satisfyingly brutal payoffs, breakdowns or even variety; only a build up that seems to take forever to make its’ point, and no time at all to do anything about it.
The unsatisfying production that plagues ‘Six Feet Deep’ is present throughout the rest of the release, and this is understandable, owing to the somewhat D.I.Y. nature of the band’s recording process. In fact, in the hands of a more competent band this handicap could even be considered a plus, utilising the coarseness of the production to accentuate the abrasive sound of the record. In Six Ft Ditch’s case, however, because the music is so vapid and unimaginative, there’s little to accentuate. The differences between riffs (such as they are) merge together, the vocal style never adjusting, the crushing ore of the music never improving. The layered nature of the individual musical elements is also terribly misguided, as the cheap production has resulted in a sound that seems to drown in its’ own distortion, like a fire that cannot be contained ultimately consuming itself. Does the album consume itself? Maybe not entirely, but that doesn’t make the gargantuan effort it makes any less humiliating. I'm aware haven’t really spent an awful lot of time commenting on actual tracks from this album, but rest assured, this is simply to save internet servers the trouble of publishing the extra words. The album is a vacuous and misguidedly aggressive hardcore record that clearly wants to have the abrasive hardcore sound akin to such bands The Secret and Trap Them. In the end though, it comes across as little more than hysterically aggressive mimic. Also, it has a hip-hop track, and an excerpt from Richard Donner's 'The Omen' woven in as a pre-breakdown catcall. These are facts.
EDIT: it has come to my attention that soon after I published this review, the official Six Ft Ditch facebook page linked it to their fans (hence the relatively high number of shares to views). I can't find the exact link anymore, but the gist of their commentary was that I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about in this review, because of my personal music taste. I would like to assert that I was, in fact, completely wrong regarding the rating and statements I made in this review.
Voices From An Evil God is a seminal hardcore release and it is a crime that it has not been inducted as a bona fide classic of the genre. The musicality is certainly not one-dimensional, or for that matter, lacking in any respect whatsoever. I am a big enough person to admit when I've been wrong, and as the band has stated, I clearly have been. Thank you, Six Ft. Ditch, you have opened my eyes. A true masterpiece by a group of true visionaries.
