Album Review: Six-Score – Lebensräume

Austrian grind band Six-Score hail from the city of Vienna, a European cultural capital famous for it’s opera houses and Mozart‘s classical compositions, but it appears that this city has something of a split personality, as Six-Score are far removed from that city’s renowned musical heritage. The band have been in existence since 2008 and they have now released their sophomore album, Lebensräume, that is being issued on all formats by a collective of labels including WOOAAARGH, Hectacombe Records and EveryDayHate. This latest release builds on the band’s blend of d-beat, hardcore punk and metal that was first unleashed on their 2010 debut album, Drudge.

I haven’t heard an album like this is a long time, this is an intense collection of eighteen tracks of blistering grindcore that is true to the roots of the scene. I was a regular at shows by the likes of Extreme Noise Terror, Napalm Death and Carcass and I remember how intense and frenzied those shows were, and I would imagine that this is the case with Six-Score, but, and this is a big but, I own very few of the albums by those bands. To me this is a scene that will always be at it’s best when experienced live, I feel the same way about most of the intense music that goes under the various core scenes, the energy and brutality of the music is something that will always appeal to me in a live setting, but when it’s recorded I find it loses the very element that makes it work in an intimate live venue.

If you are a fan of the original grindcore scene, or have a love of the more brutal side of hardcore punk, then Six Score are a band you need to acquaint yourself with, as Lebensräume is an aunthentic aural pummelling that carries the same menace and relentless battery as the original bands did. For me Lebensräume became a interchangeable assault and battery of the senses, so as a recording this isn’t an album that’s for me, but live I would bet a decent bar tab that they’re something to behold.

Lebensräume can be ordered here