S*A*S*

In 2022, 3's Robert Berry, Saga's Ian Crichton and Saxon drummer Nigel Glockler released their debut as Six By Six. But have the prog supergroup been able to recapture that magic on the highly anticipated follow-up, Beyond Shadowland? Prog caught up with Berry to discuss the challenges, inspirational artwork and orchestral arrangements that lie behind their "difficult" second album.

- Rich Wilson

Whatever you choose to call it: "difficult second album syndrome" or "sophomore slump", it remains a threatening, hovering spectre for bands that have created cracking debut records. Whether caused by a lack of suitable songs or a psychological dread of writing inferior fresh material, it has debilitated many an artist. Seemingly, Six By Six - the power trio formed by Robert Berry, Saga's Ian Crichton and Saxon drummer Nigel Glockler - were also unable to dodge that fear when constructing the follow-up to their universally lauded self-titled debut in 2022.

"It's something that's hard to explain and it is a little bit like writer's block," considers Berry, seated in his home studio. "I felt the pressure from the first album doing so well, that first of all, we didn't want to disappoint ourselves. In fact, I remember Ian sent me a couple of guitar ideas as we started the construction of our first song. I did some things on it, sent it back to him and he goes, 'Oh, this isn't as good as the first album.' I replied, 'Well, you haven't worked on it yet, of course it's not' but he still felt that it wasn't coming across. That song became a bit like a baseball. We threw it back and forth a little bit more and it finally became Spectre.