Album Review

Six Toes – Trick Of The Night

• 16th Dec 2008

Sixtoes – just the name alone before I even played the cd meant I was gonna be listening to something very sinister and I wasn’t far wrong. This 10 track debut album on their own label is a dark mix of folk and acoustic whilst awash with a mass of black strings and at times Spanish guitar.

The sextet really work the maudlin side of music and seem to embrace themselves in all things downbeat. However this is a positive experience as the differentiating vocals really double up to make it an intriguing 50 mins of listening pleasure.

The pace of the album isn’t above more than a mere shuffle but with the beautiful opener ‘trick of the night’ the brilliance is quite outstanding. The musicianship is tighter than a drum and the haunting vocals a la Mark Lanegan / Tom Waits really compliment each other beautifully with the other vocal which is more in the Jeff Buckley mode. The melodies are very well constructed and the passion in the vocals is evident against a noir landscape.

This is no mad hatter’s tea party of an album, but with the lights out and shutting yourself off the world for a hour then you cant doubt the fine painting of all things creepy that ‘Trick of the night’ is.