Review: Hold Me Down - You Me At Six.
So firstly I just want to say I am a biggg You Me At Six fan and have been listening to them since 2007, I've seen them live and I'm not one of those people who go off bands when they get popular, I hope they do well.
So after hearing The Consequence I was looking forward to this album, I loved the track I thought "Yeah they've moved their sound on a bit but kept it as them" (I hate bands changing their sound to be more commercial). I had loved Finders Keepers (though i thought slightly stolen part of it from Mayday Parade) and Kiss And Tell so yeah I can say I was looking forward to this.
They released Underdog, my immediate reaction was "What is this." Underdog was just a disappointment to me, to me it was just an average song which had no impact, especially compared to songs like Save It For The Bedroom and Jealous Minds Think Alike. To be positive though I did like the video. So I just went with Underdog its just a basic, supposedly catchy song which the band thought would appeal to people so they'd buy the album, as some people are stupid enough to just buy albums cause they find a song catchy. I actually had meant to preorder the album, just money reasons stopped me, but after hearing Underdog and having little money I decided to wait till Hold Me Down was on Spotify and listen there first before going out and buying it.
Was I happy I did. Was I happy with this album at all? No. The first track was The Consequence, which I loved so it put me in a good mood to listen to the album. This was then followed by Underdog, which to give You Me At Six a fair chance at impressing me with this album I skipped. I hated the song and didn't want that song to annoy me and then I would dislike the rest of the album. So Playing The Blame Game was a new track to me and I was not impressed. The very average, nothing different or experimental sound that Underdog has. I kept listening, this was happening in all the tracks. There was nothing different, nothing that caught my ear like in Take Off Your Colours. So I got to track 7, Liquid Confidence, this seemed different and I got hopeful. Sadly I was again let down, the song continued into the average sound, but this song came with shocking lyrics such as "And I love that attitude, When you know I can do, I'll do better than you.".
Luckily for You Me At Six from now the album actually improved, well to be honest if it had got much worse I would of been tempted to jump out my bedroom window. Hard To Swallow, was okay, not the same level as Take Off Your Colours but I liked it. Then Contagious Chemistry, and I actually do love this song. I listen to this song quite a bit, this and The Consequence are the only two songs I listen too off it. This song has such a good build up and i love how the tempo and levels in the song change throughout. To me this is the only song which is as good as anything on Take Off Your Colour, and this song should of been released not Underdog. It isn't another Save It For The Bedroom but it is a very strong song. So now I was hopeful again, the only other song really worth mentioning is Fireworks. To me this is meant to be another Always Attract. The song isn't bad but it's not as good as Always Attract, that song forever will be a really iconic song to me.
Overall I feel Hold Me Down is a failed follow up to Take Off Your Colours. This album is just your average album for this genre, and many other bands could do an album as equally dull as this, and probably have done it in a better way. I really only like 2 tracks but from track 8 onwards the album improves a lot. So if your for some reason just listening to the album i say listen to track 1 then skip to track 8 and you wont have to disappoint your ears with this shameful album.
The Review's Rating - 3/10.