Review: Seether : Poison The Parish

I have to be honest, I’m no expert on Seether. I have long written the South African group off as just another popular mainstream radio rock act. My previous assessment is true to some extent based on many of the bands more popular songs. However, after randomly hearing a track from their 2017 album, Poison The Parish and being taken aback by it‘s style, I decided I should listen to a full record by the band for the first time in my life. It’s safe to same I’m purely shocked by this release.

Seether has largely become known for their radio staple tracks which follow along the lines of many other popular acts of their era. Upon further review I’ve found Seether to have much stronger metal roots than I ever expected. Influences from metal can be heard all over Poison The Parish, in fact I’d go as far to call this a metal record. There’s sludge and stoner elements all over this project and the group manages to pull them off better than I possibly could have imagined.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you I’m now Seether’s biggest fan, I still hardly know enough about them to write a in depth review. Also, I’m not going to say this is a cutting edge landmark release either. But what I am willing to say is that Poison The Parrish absolutely blew my expectations out of the water when compared to what I’ve heard from and about the band in the past. From a musical perspective, everything is played and performed well, don’t expect a technical masterpiece but every note has a purpose and makes sense in the context of the bands vision. I also really love the production style of this LP as it is a bit dirty and more raw than any other mainstream successful rock bands.

In closing, while this isn’t a masterpiece of a release or something that‘s going to make me go back through Seether’s entire discography, it’s still very good and enjoyable. This is a rare album by a radio rock band that you don’t have to feel embarrassed to enjoy or claim to only like as a guilty pleasure. It’s hard for me to envision that Seether has a better record than this in their past or most likely their future either. I would recommend giving this one a listen for fun. It get‘s 3 out of 5 stars from us.