Dark reverberating riffage and swirling guitar textures underscored with thunderous rhythms are what Seeker bring to the table with their self-titled debut and although that is not an unusual combination to be found within this scene we call "the underground" there is nonetheless something a little bit special about the way Seeker put that combination together here. Opening number "Searching" begins, like so many doomic tomes have done before it, with thick dank guitar and bass refrains supported by slow ponderous percussion but then, just when you've prepared yourself mentally for a long period of sage head nodding, the hammer goes down and the band hurtle headlong into an up-tempo Sabbathian flavoured proto metal groove enhanced by ear catching guitar motifs under which low booming bass and thunderous busy drumming hold sway. If that is not enough to blow your socks off into another dimension then the decoration of that resulting groove with swirling lead work and powerful clean vocals will be. Next song, "The Rite", begins life fairly low key and spacious with low grizzled bass lines and tight and steady drumming supporting dark circular feeling guitar textures around which a slightly wearied and yearning vocal is pitched, the tones of which posses an air of melancholy. As the song progresses so does its tempo and intensity, the songs atmospherics and dynamics ramping up to what promises to be a noisy crescendo only for the band to then revert back to their initial low key approach to take things to the close. Third song, "Corrupted Priest" is a proto-doomic behemoth packed to the gills with everything we fans of the genre love and cherish, strong slightly mournful vocals, recurring riffage, Iommic lead work and a bass and drum groove that pulsates and throbs with the regularity of a dying human heart, the songs repeated "i'll take it all" lyric, delivered again with yearning intent, echoing in the mind long after the songs last note has faded away. Next we get "Finality" a song where we find Seeker initially dipping their feet into low'n'slow stoner doom waters, with sluggish dank refrains and pummelling percussion supporting wearied vocals telling of "ritual" and "sacrifice", before taking things to the close on an almost stoner tinted heavy metal groove. Seeker describe themselves as a band who write "heavy music about space" but up until now musically the onus has been mainly on the "heavy" part of that statement however last track "Awakening" finds the band bringing some of that "space" to the fore by adding elements of Hawkwind-esque swirliness to the mix and combining it with off in the distance melodic vocals and passages of spoken word, still keeping things damn heavy but at the same time a little cosmic too.
For there very first release Seeker have taken some Hawkwind like space-rock textures, blended them with elements of Sabbathian proto-doom and drenched the resulting mix in early Elder like atmospheric intensity while all the time making sure that their space themed lyrical content sits nicely in that perfect and always effective middle of the mix pocket. Quite why Seeker are not more pro-active on social media is somewhat of a mystery, you would think having made an album this damn good they would want to be shouting it to the world!
Check 'em out ....
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