CD Review: You Me at Six, “Sinners Never Sleep”

British alternative rockers uninspiring on mediocre record

By Alex Tranchemontagne

Posted on Oct. 26, 2011, at 11:00 p.m.

You Me at Six are an British alternative rock band that formed in 2004 but started to gain popularity in 2008. Their debut album, “Take Off Your Colours,” had a few songs that made it to the official U.K. singles chart. You Me at Six were a classic yet inspiring story of a indie rock band gaining steam and making it to the charts.

Sadly, things haven’t been as good as they once were for You Me at Six. In an awkward attempt to merge rap with rock, You Me at Six released a single with American hip-hop group Chiddy Bang. The song was poor but great for a laugh.

Since then, You Me at Six have been on a slippery slope of mediocrity.

It’s been over 18 months since their last album, so you would think they would have had plenty of time to create more catchy and meaningful songs. Sadly, with “Sinners Never Sleep,” that is not the case. What You Me and Six deliver is a cookie-cutter record.

This 12-song album opens up with the lead single “Lover Boy.” The opening vocal line is interesting and lays the ground for the instruments during the verses. The chorus is decent and fairly catchy with only four chords. The guitar solo is tame, but the verses save the song from being completely boring.

The next few songs, like “Jaws on the Floor” and “This is the First Thing,” aren’t bad, but they don’t do anything to set them apart from any other band’s songs. The rest of the CD starts to follow this trend, as nearly every song sounds the same and the entire album sounds like a bunch of other bad albums we’ve all heard before.

Tracks like “Little Death,” “No One Does It Better,” “Reckless” and “Little Bit of Truth” are flat out boring. They are plagued with strange lyrics, boring choruses and lame verses and are just incredibly generic, semi-upbeat tunes.

I’m guessing the band’s target demographic is younger girls by the way they present themselves, so You Me at Six will likely be able to get away with songs like these.

Further into the record, we hear “When We Were Younger” and “Crash.” These are two slower songs that are present on every other album like this to prove these bad boys do have a soft side. Like nearly every song before them, these two are monotonous and uninspired.

On the other hand, “Time is Money” is a faster song that proves that these bad boys are, in fact, bad boys.

To be fair, not every song is garbage. “Lover Boy” isn’t bad and “Bite My Tongue” and “The Dilemma” are pretty good as well. “The Dilemma” is a catchy song that incorporates brass instruments, a nice touch that adds much needed diversity.

“Bite My Tongue” features Oli Sykes, from fellow English band Bring Me The Horizon. The song is close to being another generic track, but Oli shakes things up for the better. In fact, Oli’s minute-long guest spot is one of the best 60-second stretches on the record.

This album could have been a pretty good EP. The highlights would have made a decent collection, but with the rest of the characterless tracks, it’s one of the least interesting releases to hit stores this year.

Grade: C-

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 26th, 2011, 11:00 pm. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.