Fantasy Records
release: out now
SEETHER was a band that I once knew not much about until I went chasing some tail in my early 20’s and ended up at one of their shows at The Tivoli in Brisbane. By the time I walked out of that show, alone, I was a fan of the band. Maybe it was my piqued interest in them that failed me as I lost interest in the tail I was chasing, or maybe it’s just because I got too wasted again. Who knows, really, but it made me a fan of this band.
Fast-forward 20 years or so, and Seether are still rocking and have just released their 9th album titled The Surface So Far. What’s it like, you ask? Well, I don’t know yet because I haven’t listened to it. Rumour has it that it’s “unapologetically aggressive”, but I’ll be the judge of that.
The album starts with a track called Judas Mind, which is pretty placid to begin with, until of course it actually kicks in and a nice big heavy riff fills my speakers. I’ll admit, It’s a little on the heavy and groovy side. It very quickly pulls back again though and vocalist Shaun Morgan takes over with some clean vocals. The song shift in and out between the clean verses and heavy choruses. Don’t get me wrong though, the vocals don’t get too heavy, they just get thicker, stronger and a little grainier. A strong start to the album!
Illusion is up next, and it starts with a broken guitar riff backed by a simple 4/4 drum beat and some basic lyrics. The riff continues as it forms into a solid riff and the band joins into the groove of the first verse. The chorus is big and airy, and the guitars strum along with some big open chords. The bridge takes a nice twist as the guitars slug along with a simple but effective riff. Somewhat of a solo follows shortly after, which ties into another chorus and a heavier outro based off the main groove riff. I like where this is going.
I was expecting a song called Beneath the Veil to be somewhat heavy, but it’s not. It sounds more like the classic kinda semi ballad stuff from this band that you hear on the Top 10 mainstream charts. And yeah, they’ve had a fair few of those in case you’ve failed to notice, or just don’t care. I care, though, because it’s a pretty hard feat for any heavy kind of band to make it onto the mainstream charts. That’s unless of course you are Nickelback and your top 10 hits pretty much sponsored every Roadrunner band ever. This ain’t Nickelback though, it’s Seether, and that was probably a single, or will be.
Semblance of Me follows the vibe delivered by Beneath The Veil, and this doesn’t upset me. After all, I’m no metal elitist and this technically isn’t a metal band or a metal album. Shaun delivers some big screams in the songs bridge, but that’s about as far as the songs elevates. It’s a classic Seether tune though, which sits ok with me.
The walls haven’t come down yet, but they just might with this next one called Walls Come Down. Maybe not if it keeps rocking along like the intro, which it doesn’t. The verses calm down a little before the chorus picks up the pace again and this cycles through as per the standard verse chorus, verse chorus rock song arrangement. It’s the kind of song you could easily sing along to once you knew the words, but I don’t, so I shan’t.
Try to Heal kicks off with a tasty little rocking guitar riff which soon develops into one hell of a fun jam with the rest of the band. Again, though, the song backs off into a stripped back verse of clean guitar and vocals. The drums join into it in the second half with some rolling tom fills, and the song takes off again into the chorus and then back into that cool intro jam. The bridge has some big feels in it as it hits a solid heavy peak, and apart from a momentarily clean interlude the song pretty well rocks out until its end.
This next one sounds a little darker as the band intends to Paint The World. It has a Tool vibe to it, in a good Tool kind of way. Yeah, I said it, there is a good side to Tool, they just haven’t done it for nearly 30 years or so. If I could describe this song as a behavioural pattern, I’d call it Passive Aggressive.
For a minute there I thought Same Mistake started with a dreaded acoustic guitar. I’m mistaken though, and it’s just a backed off electric with a little bit of scratchy gain on it. Why would an acoustic bother me, you ask? Well, that usually means we are about to get a ballad, and even though it’s not an acoustic guitar, the song is kind of a ballad. This is not an odd sound for Seether, it’s almost what they do best. They usually also throw in a few heavy bouncing riffs to lift it up a bit, and they do this time around too. Oh, bass intro take 1. Dale Stewart gets this one started with a thick, dirty bass tone and a grooving riff.
When the band joins in, the bass still continues to push through the mix and carry the song. This one is very Nu-Metal sounding, but that could just be the bass tone, or maybe the fact that Seether were slotted into that category back in the day. Another big chorus presents the opportunity for another sing along. Once I learn some words to it, that is.
Eww, someone please stop that phaser. I really dislike phasers, if I wanted to hear a jet engine I’d go to the airport. Luckily, though, it doesn’t last long and a song called Dead on the Vine gets underway. As the second last track on the album, it doesn’t stray too far from the formula that I’ve heard so far on this album. And that ain’t a bad thing, it’s a formula that has worked well for the band, with a running record of Five gold and platinum albums and two dozen Billboard Rock Airplay Top 10 hits. But I digress, that outro riff is fire!
Will I Regret listening to this last track, is it the actual dreaded album closing ballad? With its clean guitar and vocals, it very well could be. And yeah, it is, it’s exactly what it is, but much like that earlier one Same Mistake, the band haven’t made the same mistake that many bands do. It’s not just here for the sake of having a ballad, it’s kind of just what this band does. And what is it that this band does? They maintain a balance between melodic pop sensibility and heavy rocking riffs.
Not bad for a bunch of Seth Efricins…
