Melbourne band sell out. Again.
Seedy Jeezus: "Polaris Oblique". Rhetorical question: how do three hairy men make so much bloody racket? And why is it so damn good?
Patrick Emery's given this one four bottles in the review below, but you know what? bugger him with an awkward object, it's five or more easy. Thwack this on the car stereo and you'll be making sharp turns and mounting sidewalks in no time. 'Polaris Oblique' is big, heavy, and soaks like alcohol into a villain's hanky.
The Seedies know their shit, they know their rock'n'roll; Lex Waterreus (gesundheit) (he's the talented swine with the voluminous guitar and the brilliant artwork) sounds like Plant on a good day, and one must assume he has the whacking great dong to match.
Certainly bloody sounds like it. Their website states their case: "Unrestrained, fervid, blazing, psychedelic, rock". Yeah, so usually websites put up by the band are frankly full of it.
Not this time.
Oh, okay, so there's the occasional extra guitar track. Doesn't matter. You'll be blown away when you see them live; and if I haven't made it clear enough already, they're worth travelling interstate to see. Because no other band in this country come close, d'you hear? 'Polaris Oblique' is another in a long line of records you need in your collection, and why those unhip, ignorant berks at JBHingFu don't stock the Seedys is utterly beyond me.
Mark Sibson's drums and Paul Crick's bass are the cornerstone of what Lex does, and make no mistake, this is a locked-in tight, marauding band; there's none of that singer/star stuff. These three are the classic line-up, the real deal, the delivered diamonds, and a pox on you all if you have yet to lift a finger. Miss this band, miss their records, and you not only don't love rock'n'roll, you've nursed a hard-on for Air Supply and Kiki Dee your whole life.
This is only the Seedy's second studio LP, but the deluxe edition sold out on the day of release. What? They're not King Gizzard (etc), are they?
No. Good as the Gizz is, the Seedies are much better. And their packages - never mind this 'one version of the record' nonsense, the Seedies aim straight for the throats of both the music lover and the nerd with the yen for the artefact.
This is what was in the deluxe edition:
- Gatefold - foil embossed cover
- The colour is space Junk.. white blob with crazy colours
- Eight-page full colour booklet
- Insert pod girl poster
- Sew on Seedy Patch
- Black light Velvet Fluro art print
And you missed it.
However, the standard edition is more than worth the price of admission... as there's yer standard black vinyl, white, and the US edition different again. I gather there's a European edition too. These boys run their own label, basically, and it's a massive credit to them that they've built such strong links overseas. You may be sure it's the music talking, not bullshit.
Since their first LP, 'Seedy Jeezus' in 2015 (I hope you have it, it keeps selling out every time it's reissued), they've released two astonishing 12" singles, a live LP ('Live at Freak Valley'), a collaboration LP with Isiah Mitchell from Earthless (‘Tranquonauts', and there's another in the pipeline) - and three (count 'em) 7" singles.
The press release tells us that the band will be launching the album on June 2nd, which will be followed by a brief tour of Europe, taking in Red Smoke festival in Poland, the Valkhof Festival in Nijmegen, as well as dates in playing Seigen, Brussels, Oldenburg, Leipzig, Antwerp, Berlin blah blah... Perth, lucky swines, have two gigs booked in September. Adelaide, you fucking bastards, Adelaide...
I fully expect the Seedy's to hitch a boat to Yankland, where (barring an accidental visit to a high school undergoing another bunch of armed and irritable students) they will become bigger than Bozzy Wasborne - they're already a lot better (in my humble opinion).
Here's their website. Get your credit cards out. - Robert Brokenmouth
Seedy Jeezus’s new record summed up in a pithy double entendre: “Lex Waterreus gives good shred.”
It’s there in the title track, after a 30-second entrée of post-prog-via-Kubrick sonic meandering, and riding on the back of a thundering grinding Sabbath rhythm courtesy of drummer Mark Sibson and bass player Paul Crick that threatens to split your cerebral cortex into a thousand shimmering metal pieces.
You can check it out in the reassuring “Everything Will Be Alright”, unless you want to fix your gaze on the barrelling TV Eye-via Birdman riff that precedes Waterreus’s shredding escapades. “Million Light Years” is more intense, a spacewalk curated by Ace Frehley on a diet of acid and early Hawkwind. Waterreus’s sometime collaborator and touring buddy, Earthless’s Isaiah Mitchell, lends an appropriately heavy guitar hand on “All My Gods Are Stone”.
But it’s on “Oh Lord (Part One)” (this time with Tony Reed from Mos Generator) where Waterreus really hits his straps, a devilish marriage of Powder Monkeys punked-up pub rock and Led Zeppelin rock’n’roll spiritualism. It’s the first chapter in a two-part event; “Oh Lord (Part Two)” is deeper, more accusatory, Sabbath strung out and genuinely paranoid, somewhere in the vicinity of where T-Rex might have ended up if Marc Bolan had eschewed the promise of cocaine and satin-clad pop stardom for denim, beer and ‘70s stadium rock.
“Dripping From the Eye of the Sun” is the bummed-out reality that strips away the hippie-prog pretension of “Dark Side of the Moon”, and while “Treading Water” takes the foot off the pedal, it does nothing of the sort suggested by the title. And then there’s the frantic thrust, groove and metal licking conclusion of “Barefoot Travellin’ Man”. Yeah, Lex Waterreus gives good shred. Get some into ya. - Patrick Emery
