Figure of Six Work on New Album, Evolving Sound

"Me and [guitarist] Peter [Cadonici] do most of the basic songwriting, then the band cooperates finding the best shape for the riffs we wrote," explains Figure of Six guitarist Matteo Troiano of the band's writing process.

Italy's Figure of Six are trying to create a new sort of metal. The band started heavy and evolved into a comfortable mix of prog, melodic and alternative metal. The band formed in 2003 and has released two albums. Currently, they're is putting finishing touches on a new release.

While the band started out with a more traditional metal sound, having so many members clearly helped them find a unique sound all their own. It's so unique most critics can't even classify it -- and that's OK with the guys in the group. Figure of Six feature vocals, guitars, bass, drums, keyboards and a DJ. Of course, writing with so many band members isn't always easy -- or streamlined.

"We usually write a couple of riffs to play with drums, either programmed or with Lele [Pagani] our drummer, then we let the other guys hear it," explains Troiano. "After this, we re-write and arrange what we have written until the song is almost ready. [Then] we start with another song and so on until the songs are finished. When the songs are finished, we start working the songs one by one to find the weak parts of them until we are satisfied. For this third album, we changed a bit because for the first time we worked with a producer during the song writing and pre-production, so the songs are a result of our work plus Dysfunction Production's work."

Figure of Six will release their still untitled third effort sometime in 2010. The band hopes to play America soon.