You Me At Six’s rise to success has been a swift one. Their 2008 debut ‘Take Off Your Colours’ showed them to be one of the UK’s most marketable young acts, and as I sit here and write this, all of two days after the release of its follow-up ‘Hold Me Down’, the Surrey five-piece are sitting comfortably at number 4 in the UK album charts. Not bad, considering it leaked about a week ago and I’d hazard a guess that 90% of people reading this review downloaded it for free.
So does ‘Hold Me Down’ live up to the hype, the anticipation and the sales so far?
In short, yes – yes it does. The main issue that TOYC had was that it felt like (and sounded like) it had been cobbled together as quickly and as cheaply as possible. The production was abysmal, while lyrically and musically it felt like an incomplete piece of work.
From listening to ‘Underdog‘ and ‘Safer To Hate Her’, it’s abundantly obvious the lads have had the luxuries of time and money when it came to recording this time around. Recent single ‘The Consequence’ proves an explosive opener (even if it does sound like a Taking Back Sunday B-side), while ‘There’s No Such Thing As Accidental Infidelity’ and ‘Stay With Me’ are both massive singles-in-waiting. While there’s no huge change of direction from ‘Take Off Your Colours’, the exploration of new guitar tones and drum sounds makes ‘Hold Me Down’ feel much more like a real album and not just a throwaway collection of half-arsed demi-songs.
‘Hold Me Down’ is a great record. With all its hooks and choruses and Facebook-status-ready lyrics, it’s by no means a musical breakthrough or a redefinition of a genre – not by any measure. However, it’s the output of a band that has worked hard to refine their ability to write nothing more than solid, catchy pop-rock songs and they’ve more than outdone themselves in that respect.
Andy R