Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Every so often the urge to bang your head in time to the powerful beat playing out before you is so overwhelming that anyone with a serious neck condition might really have to think twice before disregarding a medical practitioners sage advice. On the other hand, you only live once and the music that Seether, the raw power that comes across from Shaun Morgan, Dale Stewart and John Humphrey amps should never get in the way of enjoying the unfolding spectacle.
Isolate and Medicate is the new album from the South African alternative Metal band and it is huge, not just in terms of off the counter production but in the refined togetherness that all three musicians bring to the table. There is nothing detached about the performance, the sound just gives the heart a lift quicker than a defibrillator set to maximum or Captain Kirk’s phaser set to stun. Isolate and Medicate could just be seen as the band’s finest contribution to the genre.
Music should always be enjoyed, if possible, there are of course some things that masquerade as the artistic form but their sanguine, repetitive and doubtful origins soon gets found out, but then one person’s triumphant blast coming out of the speakers is another’s guilt free afternoon watching the world go by from out of their windows and a cool refreshing drink of the choice by their side. Isolate and Medicate just happens to be both, the tranquillity afforded those who seek refuge in well written lyrics with substance behind them and the addition of having the sight of a raging lion racing towards you, its bib firmly tucked down its dress shirt and a silver service waiter on hand to dish out the vegetables as it tucks into you musical soul, devouring in such a fashion that you are actually pleased to give it the room for life.
In one of those rare occasions, there isn’t a single bad track on the album, each one glides with the grace of an eagle high above the American wilderness. Songs such as Same Damn Life, the brilliant My Disaster, Watch Me Drown, the heartbreaking Nobody Praying For Me and the album closer Save Today give that lion munching down on your musical innards the warm self satisfying glow and warmth only afforded to those albums that have been truly created with no manufacturing in sight to ruin it.
An album of outstanding quality; if it ever leaves your collection, check that you don’t anger the Gods first.
Isolate and Medicate is available to buy from July 1st.
Ian D. Hall