SIX MINUTE CENTURY – Time Capsules

Six Minute Century is a four-man Progressive Metal band from Houston, Texas. The group has been around since 2004, and have won some good notices playing lots of shows in their area. Time Capsules is Six Minute Century’s 10-song debut album.

While other Progressive Metal bands possess great individual talents throughout their lineups, many of the songs they put out are self-indulgent and directionless, with the groups seemingly more intent on showing how good they are as opposed to putting out really good music. Six Minute Century looks to break away from the Progressive Metal norm with Time Capsules, retaining a high skill level while putting the talent to use recording some songs with energy and life.

And for the most part, Six Minute Century proceeds to do exactly what they set out to do on this disc: the quartet is very talented, but their songs have grit and energy. This album just doesn’t lay there; it gets up and moves, and it’s heavy enough to appease the headbangers. The riffs of guitarist Don LaFon are big and loud (and the solos are choice), and singer Chuck Williams has a very strong voice with lots of range. Darren Davis (drums) and John Sample (bass) team up to provide a solid rhythm section. Six Minute Century also uses well-placed vocal samples and orchestration on some songs, but thankfully doesn’t overdo either.

Lyrically, Six Minute Century dabbles with weighty topics like Martin Luther King (“One Man’s Dream”), the Oklahoma City Bombing (“April 19, 1995”), the war in Iraq (“Zero Hour”), and religious cults (“Heaven’s Gate”) on Time Capsules. While such subjects can often be ruminated on in a heavy-handed fashion, the lyrics on Time Capsules are intelligent, well-written, and just might make you think a bit. The only song with no lyrical content is the short three-minute instrumental “Guitar Concierto,” which delivers exactly what the title says.

Nine of the songs on Time Capsules are originals, with a cover tune coming at the end, that being a pretty faithful rendition of TNT’s “Seven Seas.” While not the most essential cover song ever recorded it’s done pretty well here, even though it doesn’t deviate too much from the original.

Time Capsules is a pretty strong debut album from Six Minute Century, and deserves to be checked out.