Details on Half Control, Six Finger Satellite's ‘lost record,’ are shady, but it appears to have been begat in 2001 and never properly finished due to 6FS’s crazy inter-band problems and tour schedule. After breaking up following several lineup adjustments in the late ’90s and reforming only sparingly in the early aughts, there's now a reunion in the works, and the newly reincarnated Satellite has done up the bow on Half Control. They've also reportedly begun work on an album of all-new material, one that will likely set a course for the band into the future. This is key because Half Control, despite relative awesomeness, does not.
HC is a patchy affair that veers from current-sounding to dated within the span of a few songs, but as a Six Finger Satellite undertaking, it deserves more than to have its legitimacy questioned in a time much different from 2001. 6FS are so prominently intertwined with the Rhode Island mega-scene and acts such as Arab On Radar, Godheadsilo, Athletic Automation, and Chinese Stars that they deserve a goddamn statue or something, and the fact that Half Control isn’t completely unhinged says something about the unblightable, keytar-toting cohesion of this group.
The first couple tunes, “Thrown Out” and “Herpe Gimme Strength,” are fairly rote takes, steeped in immense-bottom-end guitars, halting rhythms, and scratchy shouts that won’t make you forget about the 6FS of yore. Not that you would want to, but I’m not looking for an excavation of thought-lost fossils, here; I want a brand-new Six Finger Satellite album, and I don’t think I’m alone.
My reprieve comes in the form of “Artificial Light,” a creepy future-sound number with haunted-house synth ribbons and more range in vocal personality than the preceding pair. The title track comes next, buzzing its way into oblivion, but not before flying into your ear and having a shitload of babies. If you can muck through the fuzz, there’s a crushing RAWK-’em SAWK-’em progression going on here, one that slowly and surely saws your head off (and there’s blood and everything).
It occurs to me that this is perfect music for comic-book fans. Much like Mindflayer and other geeky experimental rock outfits, everything 6FS does is amped-up to the extreme, larger than life, bigger than you figure, etc. Singer J. Ryan never just shouts, he SCREAMS, and the drummer never just plays, he POUNDS. This trend flows throughout their music, delivering an outsized din that can only be spelled out by huge, cartoon-colored letters.
“Live Legs” squanders much of the heightened momentum of the title tune, but the herky-jerky two-minute-romper “A Tighter Passage” suddenly recovers a bit of the electricity with high-flying drumming and more of that fuzz-box, bitch-slappin’ bite. “Long Time For C” plugs along like a lot of the other tracks, but its drumming again makes the difference, cycling through a tough-to-pinpoint fluctuation of toms and cymbals that will keep your head nodding. A strange guitar break reminiscent of Elephant Riders Clutch tops off “Long Time” with a cherry. From there, only the seven-minute-plus “Bored Oracle” is left, and its Oneida sprawl is exactly what this record needs to close out in style.
You might think Half Control is a great album by dint of all my neon descriptors and palpable excitement, but the truth is that HC isn’t quite hardcore enough. Considering all the hype and excitement tethered to Six Finger Satellite like tin cans on a Just Married car, it falls short of truly announcing their return to the world. Besides, haven’t 6FS announced their intention to release an all-new album? If so, why not drop that shit like it’s shit-hot first, then release the recast of an older, forgotten, heretofore-unreleased record?
Either way, the underground music fan wins; I just want a little bit more from one of rock’s most legendary footnotes.
1. Thrown Out
2. Herpe Gimme Strength
3. Artificial Light
4. Half Control
5. A Tighter Passage
6. Live Legs
7. Long Time No C
8. Bored Oracle