Artist - Seether
Album - Karma and Effect
Label - Wind Up Records
Reviewer - Robin Steeley
FIVE FREAKING STARS
If you are familiar at all with my reviews, then you know that I have only labelled one album with five stars in the past. South African band Seether’s ‘Karma and Effect’ is the second. In first listening to the album, it doesn’t hit you immediately. It’s this subtle sense of familiarity that you get, and the lyrics start to sink in and suddenly you realize you are singing along, and feeling the music. And other times, it rocks so hard and heavily that listening to it while driving I suddenly realized I was at 90 in a 50mph zone.
Most of the music is melancholy, and angst ridden but whether it’s a ballad or a heavy rocker, the underlying quality of rawness is always there, like a wound recently opened. The album remained in my CD player and it is still there today. Compared to ‘Disclaimer’, Seether’s last effort the music is heavier and yet still more melodic at the same time. There is nothing commercial about any of these songs yet each one will infect you with its choruses and melodies. Shawn Morgan’s voice is both sultry and gravely, the lyrics are dark and brooding, and the songs rock heavily.
The album opens with “Because Of Me”, the guitars leading you in to a throat-wrenching scream before it settles into the opening verse. The ending of this song is one of the heaviest moments on the whole record. Track two is their current hit single that is climbing the charts, “Remedy” and its hooky memorable chorus. I have to skip to my absolute favourite song off this CD, “The Gift” there is something about this song that just dug into my soul, I felt compelled to listen to it eight times in a row one night. It reads to me like a beautiful poem. The guitars in it make me ache with this bittersweet sensation. It almost defies explanation.
When I did finally let the song play through it led into another great track “Burrito” that starts with this heavy rock groove and some nearly tribal percussion with crushing breakdowns mid song. I love the guitar work and the beautiful lyrics of “Never Leave”. Other favourites from these thirteen tracks are the final ones, the intense and controversial “I’m The One” that has an incredibly brutal breakdown, a formula repeated in the crushing “Simplest Mistake”. They make a change with the rambling acoustic “Plastic Man” and if you wait long enough there is a strange sweet little hidden track. I love it from beginning to end.
There is an emotional quality that is tangible in every song. It is overall an intense and powerful effort, a solid rock album with many memorable moments. Out of all the new releases that have hit my desk this year, ‘Karma and Effect” had the biggest effect on me.
