The Seawhores - Forest

I absolutely love it when I run across something that combines elements from some of my favorite types of music. It doesn’t happen very often, and when it does I am always blown away by it, as if it shouldn’t be possible. However, the Seawhores have managed to do just that on their first album Forest. The album ranges in everything from crippling amounts of distortion, gritty AmRep driven rhythms, and ambient drone. Each song on Forest showcases something different, however the ability to pull this off while not harming the continuity of the album is fairly impressive on its own.

What originally begun as the duo of Cody Weigel and Adam Marx was later expanded into a full lineup including Brady Lenzen on guitar and Freddy Votel (formerly of the Cows) on drums. The number of people that actually worked on the album is considerably more than that though, as the album credits a handful of people for working on Forest, two namely being Brian Chippendale (Lightning Bolt) and Dale Crover (The Melvins).

I’ve always enjoyed groups or projects that work on a certain level of quirkiness or play a brand of odd pop influenced noise. Not because it immediately sets itself apart, but it’s a lot of times abrasive in nature and honestly a lot more fun to listen to. You have no clue where the music might go and to the extremes it’s going to take. That is what I like about The Seawhores. Upon first listen, you have no fucking idea where this album is going or what the next song is going sound like. It might be a giant slab of ambient distortion or it could dive into some lo-fi styled dirge rock extravaganza. It’s completely untamed and that’s the type of music and can easily settle on. Even on repeated listens, The Seawhores manage to keep my attention with the amount of little nuances that they have smuggled in underneath everything.

Seawhores – Sweaty Men, Attack [MP3]
Seawhores – May Your Hands Wither [MP3]

Really though, this is an album that needs to be heard rather than me trying to take it off record and put into some kind of description. Don’t overlook it this year and head on over to Essay Records and pick up Forest.