It’s a little difficult to pick exactly where to start with CB6. The band’s updated take on “Old School” Thrash feels both refreshing and familiar, but if you’ve never really thrown down (even mentally) to Pantera, then it might go over your head. Regardless, there’s very little posturing or pretension on display here, and ‘Succession’ regularly just breaks out into a wall of angry noise.
The album doesn’t progress as much as it does stampede through its eleven tracks, and what stands out early on is that the band are ridiculously tight. Each track punches through a wall to the next perfectly, and you get the feeling that the songs have been sweated out in a rehearsal room until they’re worthy of the outside world. ‘Succession’ carries a British metal vibe on top of those US thrash roots, and with a raw (but not even slightly unsuitable) production, it leaves the excellent musicianship on full display.
‘Clocks’ and ‘Illusion’ probably sit as the strongest two tracks on ‘Succession’, but CB6 have really done the business here, managing to create an effortlessly authentic sounding album that never resorts to resting on gimmicks. CB6 is a name that you’ll be seeing induce a more than a few pits, so now is a fantastic time to get on board.
TOM AYLOTT