The riff-heavy Metal that met my ears when I gave this debut EP from Finnish six-piece Six Shooter is impressive even on multiple listens. Although the band do still adhere to certain clichés of the genre that generally put me off, it’s hard to fault their instrumental skills or indeed the songwriting, the band even managing to make the slower semi-ballad Departure Song interesting and strangely affecting. The closest comparison I can think of is Kiuas, although Six Shooter are less aggressive and more traditional in their Heavy Metal style. They’re tight and together for such a young band, the instruments working well together if sounding slightly odd at times due to the production which dumps everything together at more or less equal volume.

The most impressive track to these ears is opener Under The Wither, storming along before slowing to a stomp and taking a mournful path for the verses before slightly losing focus in the chorus – it shows their potential, however, with the confident complexity. Unlike Jesus is a crunchy old Nightwish-y storm of riffage, and finale Maniac Ballet has some good usage of keyboards but suffers most from the vocals, which are decent but lack that extra bit of oomph which would propel Six Shooter to greater heights.

For a debut EP, it’s certainly not bad, but there’s a lot of work to be done before the band can make a serious assault on the hearts and minds of Metal fans - remember the name, and look out for new material from this promising band. You can hear this EP via the band’s official site, above.