Het Zesde Metaal - Randgevallen [Unday Records]

Format: 12" transparent.

Those who had the privilege of attending Het Zesde Metaal's theater tour in the spring of 2025 were also able to enjoy a handful of brand new songs. And then discovered that, unfortunately, they couldn't be heard anywhere. Until now, because the desire to capture those songs for eternity grew. So Wannes Cappelle and company spent a few days this summer in Waimes (DAFT Music Studios), for the first time with the new lineup: Kasper Cornelus on guitar/keyboards and Sander Verstraete on bass.

The result is the EP Randgevallen: five songs, five narratives of personal life and the world that once again prove Het Zesde Metaal's unique talent for describing, moving, and enchanting. Furthermore, it is a testament to the musical and textual versatility that has characterized the group for years. Service opens the EP with an upbeat pop song in which Cappelle ironically portrays the obsession with reviews and "likes" in daily and economic life: "what do you think of our service? / wouldn't you give us a ten? / please, because otherwise the manager gets angry." In Traagskes Groeien, the tempo slows and the gaze turns inward, to personal life, reflecting on children slowly leaving the nest. "you don't have to rush / you have to grow slowly / layer by layer," Cappelle tries to postpone the act of letting go a little longer.

Anyone who thought Oud En Nieuw is about celebrating in the darkest days of December is at the wrong party. Rocked by a hypnotic bassline, drums, and pedal steel, the fleetingness of life reappears, this time with a broader, more social perspective. "everything old was once new / and the big started small / much is born from little / the smooth was once rough / even truth was once invented." When towards the end the pulsating synthesizers raise the tempo and the song opens with a slightly euphoric instrumental coda, all that's left is to close your eyes and contemplate what was and what will be.

Label is the only song written especially for the EP, and like Service, it moves with a playful sound, while Cappelle describes himself with sharp, accurate phrases. "I avoid most centers, I belong to the fringe cases / maybe I deserve a label too." Must we always try to pigeonhole others? Couldn't everyone just be different? With irony, Cappelle reverses the roles: "atypical is the norm / you can color outside the lines / being common is not forbidden / being normal doesn't hurt / as long as they know their place / we odd ones are the majority."

The closing track is the moving Duizend Soldaten by Willem Vermandere, which Cappelle and Filip Wauters performed earlier this year for the TV show Ik Vraag Het Aan. It now provides a striking finale to an EP that once again underlines the band's timeless class. Exciting, narrative, recognizable, funny, emotional, sharp. Het Zesde Metaal is all that, and only needs five songs to prove it.