What hasn’t killed the five piece Surrey band You Me At Six has only made them stronger; as they emerge from a difficult period – they were at one point close to breaking up - with their third and strongest album, ‘Sinners Never Sleep’.

‘Sinners Never Sleep’ is noticeably more mature than their previous two albums, ‘Take Off Your Colours’ and ‘Hold Me Down’, with the band distancing themselves from the popular and slightly manufactured pop-punk music that have earned them their success, and now exploring a somewhat heavier, artistic sound.

The album opens on ‘Loverboy’, a strong single that will be stuck on repeat in your head all day and effectively bridges the gap between ‘Hold Me Down’ and the new album.

Hot on its heels are ‘Jaws On the Floor’, where the jaw-dropping guitar riff is matched by punchy lyrics; and then ‘Bite My Tongue’ – the song that is the epitome of the band’s refreshing honesty throughout the album. Frontman Josh Franceschi delivers cutting lyrics towards his band mates such as “I’ll watch you fall apart, cos in the end what are you without me?” laying bare for the first time the band’s inner disharmony which drove them to near collapse. Oli Sykes of Bring Me The Horizon makes a guest appearance at the end of the track, and Winston McCall from Parkway Drive appears later on in the album, in the track ‘Time Is Money’. The screamo cameos seem quite pointless in that the band’s own performance is more powerful than the guests’, so the only reason to feature them must be to use big names to reach out to a wider audience, fair enough I suppose.

The rest of the album is made up of a delicious assortment of infectious, bouncy songs as well as sweet, intimate ballads .The highlight of the album for me is ‘The Dilemma’, capturing your attention immediately, it opens with Josh singing in an almost Cockney accent, which you may think sounds weird, but it builds to a catchy chorus, and with an infectious riff threaded throughout, this song is fun, individual and intelligent - and instantly lovable.

The album was produced by Garth Richardson, known for his production work with Biffy Clyro and Rage Against The Machine. Richardson’s fingerprints on the album are faintly perceptible, with strings incorporated into some of the songs, most obviously in ‘Little Bit of Truth’, slightly reminiscent of the strings used in Biffy’s ‘Only Revolutions’. They add another dimension to the album.

Clearly this kind of evolution in sound was a gamble, but the gamble has paid off, and should gain You Me At Six new fans without disappointing existing ones.

Overall the album is testament to how much the band have grown over the past two years, with the honest lyrics and rock soundtrack setting it in a different league from previous albums.

Rating: 8/10

Sinners Never Sleep was released 3/10/11 through Virgin.

You Me At Six will be touring the UK next year and tickets are now on sale for Glasgow SECC where they will be supported by Kids in Glass Houses, Mayday Parade and The Skints in March 2012.

by G Cartney