I remember Seether from a while back (you know, that soundtrack song), so when Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces arrived on my desk and I did a bit of checking, I was surprised to find that it’s been out for over half a year in the States and the rest of the world. How come I hadn’t heard anything about it?
Having listened to it a few times, the answer is obvious; I hadn’t heard about it because Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces isn’t a particularly noteworthy album.
Well, maybe that’s a bit unfair; it’s an album with a few talking points, but they’re mostly based on gratuitous profanity or overblown lyrical imagery. Seether’s obvious pitch for the male teen angst market is the acronymically titled “FMLYHM”, whose chorus revolves around the refrain “fuck me like you hate me.” I’ve no objection to the lyrics on principle, it’s just a disappointingly obvious song that doesn’t dig into the emotional depths of the subject as it so easily could.
It is, however, an angry and bitter song; perhaps this is frontman Shaun Morgan’s revenge for his less than flattering portrayal in Evanescence’s “Call Me When You’re Sober”. Morgan apparently is sober now, and also lost his brother to suicide back in 2007, so he’s got plenty of reasons to be angry – making it somewhat surprising that Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces has more moments of optimism and positivity than Seether’s previous material, albeit handled with all the lyrical flair of a street-corner drunkard.
That’s not to say they’ve mutated into a pop-punk band. Far from it; despite the departure of guitarist Pat Callahan in 2006 leaving Seether as a trio, they push out a big loud blend of post-grunge with hints of nu-metal. Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces suffers from overproduction, however; while ideal for radio, a close listen reveals that big sound to be comprised of layers of digital studio gloss rather than any authentic tone. Meanwhile, Morgan’s newly-trained voice swings between mimicking Chad Kroeger and James Hetfield, sounding more mid-West American than South African but articulating a great deal of fury and resentment in the process.
Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces attempts to live up to its own title, but it falls over from being perhaps a little too personal. Morgan can’t be faulted for channelling his life experiences into Seether’s music, but it goes beyond being an intimate confessional and ends up feeling more like lending an ear to someone who keeps raking over the coals of the same few events; much as you feel compassion for the guy, there’s a selfish part of you that wishes he’d stop whining and just deal with it.
When it’s a real friend in that sort of scenario, of course, you do all you can to help – including sitting through the raging rants as often as is necessary. Perhaps it’s a function of my age, but I haven’t got the patience to do that for musicians any more – especially not when there’s little else of musical substance to keep me hanging around. Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces isn’t a terrible album, but it’s not a particularly good one, either; Seether will have to find a different confessor.
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Posted in Music reviews |
Tags: alternative, Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces, nu-metal, post-grunge, Seether
