Opening track Welcome to the Freak Show is an absolute banger of a start for Figure of Six. A guttural throaty voice welcomes you to the Freak Show while circus style music plays in the background. It’s sinister, builds excitement for what follows perfectly & when those drums hit… Oh my, that’s an impressive sound. Described as a mix of nu-metal, deathcore & dejent, Figure of Six certainly know how to create a sound that instantly draws in the metal fan. The riffs are exciting, the drumming absolutely killer & most of the vocals on point. There are different styles of vocals going on throughout; a dirty, throat-ripping style & a cleaner singing style. The latter of the two really let’s down the record, it’s bland sounding & almost immediately drops the quality of the record. It’s not that the harder vocals are particularly fresh sounding but it fits the music far better. Whereas Welcome to the Freakshow was an exciting start that pumps you up, the following song really let’s things down. The Man in the Dark plods along offering little in the way of excitement & the occasional shots of electronica doesn’t help. The albums overall theme does shine through wonderfully throughout though. Welcome to the Freakshow sounds like an invitation to the most depraved show on earth. It’s just a pity that far too much sounds like by the numbers deathcore stuff. If it wasn’t for the fantastic drum beats you’d have a lot of trouble remembering a lot of these songs directly after they ended. Some of the more impressive songs include The Weak One & The King and the Servant. The Weak One in particular makes fantastic use of effects, really heightening the passion of the mid-point vocals. However those same effects often have a derogatory effect too such as on the bland sounding Edward Mordrake & the extremely boring Monster. Elsewhere you can’t shake off the feeling that you’ve heard a lot of this before. It’s a common problem within deathcore & while Figure of Six do it far better then most it’s still not going to set the world alight. Originality isn’t exactly the word that comes to mind while listening to Welcome to the Freakshow but what is done well…is really done well! The 10 track album finishes with the acousticly driven blues driven But Deliver us From Evil. While it’s nice to have a bit of variety, it comes when you want a hard-hitting finish. A blasting end to an album that never comes. It’s infuriating that the best thing about Welcome to the Freak Show is the drumming & it ends without so much as a symbol tap
