Wednesday, 6 November 2019

The Drift - SEER (Album Review)


Release date: November 22nd 2019. Label: Self Released. Format: DD

SEER – Tracklisting

A Coward’s Wager
Seer
Don’t Forget to Breathe
Funeral Man
Adrift
Day One
Decider
Reclaim This World
A Passage on Time
I Dream of Delug

Members

Drums, Vocals - Hannes Matthysen
Guitars - Jason Giacoppo
Vocals - Louis du Pisani
Guitars - Alec Surridge
Bass - Chris Preyser

Review

Seer is the new album from South African Sludge Metal band – The Drift. This band play a more psychedelic and doomier based of Sludge Metal. The album is quite varied from start to finish with The Drift and this album acts as a closing chapter to the trilogy of albums called "Deluge" the band have released over the last few years.

The Drift move through many different genres within this album with relative ease and play some epic creative sounds that draws in elements of Sludge Metal, Groove Metal and Progressive Metal. The album isn’t the easiest thing to listen to with the bleak lyrics and harsh vocals allowing The Drift to stand on their own ground.

The songs sound very similar to each other with the pummelling rhythms and hard-hitting grooves allowing the band to show their love for all things loud and heavy. The album is played at a played at a fast pace and you can hear a distinctive Lamb Of God influence within this album but with a more Sludgier sound. Though the band do like to experiment with their music and vocals with quite a bombastic and theatrical approach especially on the earlier stages of the album with the song Don’t Forget To Breathe. Which is perhaps the standout song on the album with its experimental style of Sludge/Post-Metal harsh atmospheric sounds.

Seer is my first exposure to the band so I can’t compare Seer to their other albums. However, that doesn’t stop Seer being a deeply engrossing and brutally heavy affair with a lot of cool things going for it. You don’t have to wait long for a thumping riff to get things moving in the right direction.

Standout songs are: Don’t Forget To Breathe, Funeral Man, Adrift, Decider and Reclaim This World which all show how creative and exciting The Drift actually are. As they perform these songs with pure emotion and conviction which makes the experience of Seer that emotionally more rewarding.

I need to start looking into South African Hard Rock/Metal scene more closely now as I’ve discovered a wide range of great bands over the last eighteen months or so such as Ruff Majick, Black Pistol and now The Drift. There seems to be a lot of untapped talent in that area of the world. Thanks should goto Warren at Plug Music Agency who sends me these bands to review and discover.

Anyway this review is about The Drift and they’ve released an expertly produced album that will hopefully find an audience within the Sludge Metal community.

Words by Steve Howe

Thanks to Warren at Plug Music Agency for the promo. SEER will be available to buy on all Digital Platforms from November 22nd 2019.

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