Six60 – Right Here Right Now (Massive) (13th Floor Album Review)
Right Here Right Now is the latest offering from world-famous-in-New-Zealand band Six60. It’s a hook-loaded, statement continuing roughly where I can only assume they left off from the last album.
Even though Six60 are a band that I have been fairly indifferent towards since they became a staple of the New Zealand music scene over fifteen years ago, I actually do have several connections to them that I will divulge – confess to, if you will – momentarily.
I actually shared the stage with them in the 2008 University of Otago Students Association Battle of the Bands. I can’t remember too much about them or how they did. Although, I can remember my group stunk and, naturally, did not progress to the next stage (thanks for asking). A few years later, on the sideline at a Ponsonby rugby club game, my cousin pointed out a flanker. “You should check out his band, they’re called Six60.” He grunted between play. And, as would luck would have it, someone happened to lend me a copy of the EP shortly afterwards.
Honestly, I actually quite liked it. The reggae meets drum & bass thing was rather cool (to me) back in 2010. I even went to see them when they toured small town New Zealand, having a nice chat to the keyboard player about the arpeggiator function on the MicroKorg synthesizer (as you can imagine, a very stimulating conversation for me – possibly not for him!).
Yet soon afterwards, upon their major release of Don’t Forget Your Roots and a pretty scathing editorial review, that sort of music lost all appeal. I packed my bags and went abroad, while BBQ reggae became the butt of many jokes in my absence. A friend’s band proudly made a detour to Castle Street when playing Dunedin just to get photographic evidence of one member flipping the bird at the iconic flat. There was even a clever web show parody floating around the Auckland music scene about the Six60’s impact on New Zealand music.
And I know you didn’t ask for my life story within the context of Six60, but I felt it was important to let you know what lens I am reviewing Right Here Right Now through.
From the first few bars of the LP, you can get a pretty good idea of what you’re going to get for the remaining half an hour. It’s family-friendly-guitar-reggae-with-suitably-catchy-melodies. That’s not a bad thing.
But apart from giving us some nostalgic (and vaguely out of tune), singalong-classical-guitar-at-the-summer-BBQ introductions in Red Mist, Six60 have a formula which they happily follow. It’s fun, inoffensive and optimistic music. I was a bit disappointed to hear the lack of the arpeggiator function on the MicroKorg synthesizer. Except for a few background keyboards, it’s fairly guitar heavy. Yet the aggressively catchy lead guitar work I remember, has been scaled back heavily. I’m sure you were expecting a bunch of reggae strokes anyway, so no surprises there.
Where Six60 seem to flex their chops is where they move into more soulful vibes in songs such as The Alchemist. Frontman Matiu Walters has a rather remarkable voice, and he has learned how to use it well. The vocal melodies are (as you would expect) water-blasted with hooks. But lyrically, it’s not a particularly deep or clever thoughtful product.
This is probably my largest critique on the album. We Are All Kings literally begins with the line ‘just a working man’. Knocking At Your Door ticks off many clichés, that you wouldn’t be outlandish to assume that an AI chatbot had pieced the lyrics together. I wasn’t expecting a lot from a genre that usually embraces family, the beach and the BBQ (of which Six60 tick off two of the three in this outing). And who can expect a lot from a group that had the line ‘Choice for the chosen’ all those years ago?
Even from the first listen (of about four) of Right Here Right Now, you can pick up on two major themes. It’s been nearly twenty years since these guys formed after going to a Kora concert. So, it’s important that they reflect on the changes over that time. And, yes, I think that’s perfectly warranted. Six60 have made astronomical ripples compared to most that have made a splash out of the well enclosed Leith River scene.
The other theme is growing older with your family at your side. Which, as someone moving into that bracket, I can relate to. Yes, they’re not exactly pushing out the boat in their songwriting, but I don’t think that’s why the average fan enjoys the band.
You’ll get a catchy, feel-good vibe from Right Here Right Now. Six60 continue to produce radio friendly reggae. They even have a few lovely soulful songs that break the norm of what you might normally hear in the background at some point in New Zealand between December to February. Lyrically, it’s a bit cliché. But when a large proportion of people are dancing along, does it really matter?
Daniel Edmonds
Right Here Right Now is out Right Now.
