It's been four long years since math-metallers The Fucking Champs last rocked us with V (not including their collaborations with buddies and fellow instrumentalists Trans Am under the Fucking Am/Trans Champs banners), and man are we ready for a new Champs album. During that time the Champs went through a lineup change, replacing founding guitarist Josh Smith with Phil Manley from Trans Am, but they haven't lost any of their chops and ability to craft utterly anthemic hooks in the interim. Sure, VI doesn't break any radical new ground, but that's ok by me as their dual guitar harmonies and mindbending melodic shredding shoots straight into the freaking stratosphere on this new platter. Of course, there's all of the other Champsian flourishes that I love: the tongue-in-cheek song titles, the awesome 80's style promo shots, the general sense of fun that infects all of their tunes, perfectly balanced with the band's execution of total whiplash. VI is unapologetically prog-rock too, so what ya get are jams like the chugging, Queen-esque opener "The Lodge", the gleaming, lighthearted axe acrobatics of "That Crystal Behind You (Are You Channeling?)", "Champs Fanfare", and with sometimes triple-harmonized guitars ascending to the heavens, and the awesome time signature-shifting workout "Play on Words", riding on the Champs stripped down, bassless metal attack that mutates the most awesome elements of ...And Justice for All era Metallica, early Iron Maiden, Thin Lizzy, and Carcass into majestic harmonies and megacatchy mathy headbanger anthems perfect for serious basement beer action and blacklight cosmic flights. The Champs chill out on a couple of tracks too, though; "Play on Words" wanders through a minute-and-a-half drift of meandering acoustic strings; spacey keyboards surge on "Insomnia"; "Dolores Park" blossoms into a gorgeous Zeppelin blissout of lush strings, dreamy mellotron and folky A.M. radio melodies; a brief, guitar-only metal rendition of the early 19th century Christian hymn "Abide With Me"; and comedian Neil Hamburger appears with a "guest vocal" on "Fozzy Goes to Africa", but blink and you'll miss him. Yeah, VI is everything I want in a Champs album.