Album Review: Seether - Holding On To Strings Better Left To Fray

Seether are one of those bands that flirt dangerously with a time-worn archetype. They don’t make things easy on themselves by attempting to blur the edges a little with a dose of sass, a dollop of heavy, and a portion of oddball. Like kids following the kerb they teeter flirtatiously along the edges of the bog-standard hard rock mould; one wobble to the right, they find the path and get criticised for bandwagoning, one wobble to the left, they fall into the road and get lambasted for moving away from the music that built their fanbase, away from everything they clearly hold so dear. They know this and we know that they know this. A quick glance at their recent album titles Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces and, here, Holding On To Strings Better Left To Fray is proof enough.

Consider that this band started life under the grim moniker Saron Gas (a name that evokes images of Tolkien’s “stench of Mordor”) and combine this with the fact they come from the ass-end of Africa, and you can see they’ve not had it as easy as it first appears. At this point, they couldn’t really have been much further from the location or one-word cool of the radio-friendly rock bands (Nickelback, Staind, Creed, Godsmack, TRAPT, etc.) that they coveted. Thankfully, once they signed to Wind-Up Records, they moved to the US and stepped into line, calling themselves Seether for their sophomore effort. Now that feels much better already, right?

Knowing this, you won’t be surprised when you hear this new album’s first single, “Country Song”. It has banjo, tambourine and twang-heavy harmonies swept into the mix (a far cry from the wobbleboard and didgeridoo of 2007′s “No Jesus Christ”) as Seether lay down the final piece to fulfill their American dream – that “chink, chink” sound is of spurs being earnt. It’s actually a nifty, uncluttered attempt to create a sense of that huddled campfire camaraderie that comes from journeying alone across a forboding wilderness.

Cutting to the chase, the band still court that washed-out vocal style and minimalist drums for the verses before catapulting you into the chorus with all guns blazing. It’s always in four-four time there’s always a middle eight, and there’s always, always a ballad for the laydeez. You couldn’t get more formulaic if you tried. But then, when a band grooves like a bastard and carves straight to the bone, you can’t help but develop a face-splitting grin. They can shit-kick with the best of them when they rage and yet they can soften up into babies when they want to. So while, “Down” lurches back and forth like a drunk in a moshpit and “Desire For Need” decapitates us with razor-wire by illiciting a vast neck-jerking action using some seriously dirty strings, the opposing forces of “Here And Now” and “Master Of Disaster” perform the most delicate of emotion-laced soft-shoe shuffles. The star turn here is “No Resolution” which gives us a chunky, fat riff, fuzzed-up chords and a bollock-load of top-end bass with a hooked chorus that blows Finding Beauty‘s “Rise Above This” out of the water.

It’s not all easy-going though. The album squeezes out way too many slow numbers and, inevitably, crumbles when placed next to the vehement brilliance of their back catalogue (yes, the homogenized production of Brendan O’Brien strikes again). They get a slow shake of the head for employing the old trick of a disguised swear as a song-title (let’s hope they weren’t familiar with Lower Than Atlantis’ “Far Q” when they named “Fur Cue”). And then, to cap it all, they miss the mark by a million miles with “Tonight” as they attempt to match Foo Fighters for rock chops yet end up sounding duller than ditchwater. It’s unimaginitive, blueprint songwriting that feels constricted by design – you can count in every damnable pause, mundane chug and hateful drumbeat. Ditto “Pass Slowly” which is quite possibly the most effective anaesthetic I’ve ever come across. Herein lies the problem with this tightrope they continually walk along. One slip, and they’re in freefall.

To counteract all this pussyfooting around, we have the excellently Muse-esque “Roses” with its dark, minor chords, a vocal that occasionally stretches for the sky, and a sinister chorus that contains the line “Save me, even as you break me, every time you rape me”. Oh, and check that huge Mastodon stoner riff at its climax. This track alone proves there’s still so much untapped promise here. One day, fingers crossed, Seether will lay a grenade of an album down and our perceptions will all be scattered to kingdom come. Until that day arrives, we’ll have to content ourselves with the fact that their killer always comes with filler.

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Album Review: Seether - Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces

This very week I may have suggested that bands from South Africa don‘t often reach these shores - in fact I said, and I quote, ”It’s not often you hear of bands from South Africa causing such a stir overseas.” As I write, I have in front of me a rather natty looking trilby and I’m tucking into it after every sentence. The reason? Seether are a South African hard-hitting rock trio that have been… er, how shall I put this… causing a stir overseas. They’ve notched up a jaw-dropping two million album sales so far.

After parting company with lead guitarist Pat Callaghan and vocalist Shaun Morgan going into rehab for cocaine and alcohol addictions the band have thrown themselves into the new album with Morgan admitting, “Because it was just three of us there were fewer minds to stymie the or halt the whole process. I wanted to write songs that were more melodic this time around. I didn’t feel the need to scream as I might have in the past and I felt I could have used sitars if I wanted.”

With ‘Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces’ completed it becomes their sixth studio album (if you include the one they recorded under their original name, Saron Gas) and has finally reached the UK after amassing 400,000 sales following it’s October 2007 release in the States. I imagine this has a lot to do with the extraordinary vocal of Shaun Morgan which flits between the croak and croon of Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger and the biting snarled delivery of Machine Head’s Robb Flynn. However the intricate roll and batter drum patterns of John Humphrey and Dale Stewart’s walking bass are just as bright in the mix - and with so little instrumental clutter you’d expect them to.

The fuzzed vocal opening and guitar of opener ‘Like Suicide’ is pure Nickelback, soaring into double-vocal bridge and chorus before bursting out into a red-raw scream of such intensity that lifts it to a whole new level. Its pure single material, catchy as fuck, warped enough even to dip it’s toes in nu-metal theatrics. Utterly monumentally and way beyond anything the first few bars promised. ‘Fake It’ kicks like a mule but ultimately fails to inspire trying out a few new wave effects over the rock groove that don‘t quite fit.

‘Breakdown’ and ‘Fmlyhm’ are awkward ballads and are evidence of the band’s more melodic approach. The grim out-of-place chorus of “fuck me like you hate me” on the latter proves that they haven‘t quite found a suitable home for the style. In fact it’s not until ‘No Jesus Christ’ that I find myself absorbed fully, ears popping as I gawp at the furious volley of bile spewing forth from my speakers. The didgeridoo and wobble-board opening are overlapped by Morgan’s “verbal defecation” and a screaming guitar but when we hit the chorus its grungy riffs decide that stripping skin from bone whilst the vocal slaps murky angst into our maws is best - and it is! The ever-changing nature of the song delights and troubles in equal measure. It’s a restless thing, lacking structure and eventually trickles to a listless conclusion.

This track sums up the album as a whole for me. There are moments where I truly believe it to be a possible album of the year only to find a ‘Breakdown’ or a ‘Waste’ hiding round the corner to drag it all towards a radio-friendly pile of mediocrity. Listen to ‘Rise Above This’, a song Morgan wrote about his brother before he died tragically last August. If you like that, you’ll find this new more melodic direction a revelation. The rest of us can glory when Seether stick to screaming and shake our heads disappointedly when they reach for the sitar.