Seer are a doom band with some serious sludge and psychedelic influences. Hailing from the Pacific coast of Canada, the sound the guys come out with is just as massive as the expanse they hail from. A two-part release, Volume 1 & 2 promises a surreal journey through the vast expanse with some serious sonic landscapes to traverse and many challenges to whether ranging from intense to heavy to ominous and discomforting. Perhaps named in tribute to the guys who started it all, Black Sabbath, Seer are certainly ready to unleash something special and with a raft of guest musicians to make this possible, we can only hope the two parter makes one complete piece.

Opening up with “Glimmervoid”, a wall of colossal sounding riffs backed up with some booming bass kicks things off and the slightly hazy, spaced out vocal delivery gives it a real ominous and surreal edge. Shifting into a fantastic groove laden section, the vocals get harsher, taking a real sludge-like edge to them before it quickly slips into the powerfully delivered chorus. The ‘bouncy’ feeling riff with a great tone and clean vocals once again come in, changing the pace slightly, and this approach continues throughout the track, slipping from slow paced to thick and heavy groove, clean and trippy singing to real harsh roars. It’s a simple exploit of dynamics, but it works fantastically. As the track continues, it gets heavier and there are some wonderful sounding riff sections and some real heavy pounding moments, all leading up to a dramatic and intensely heavy ending which eases off into some howling feedback to draw the track to a close.

“Hive Mind” is a steady paced, dissonant feeling and huge sounding track. With a melodic lead over a pulsing drone-like rhythm, it has a hypnotic quality to it. The clean hazy vocals return and as they float across the riffs, the rich and booming bass really shines, acting almost as a counter melody to the vocal progression. Guitar-wise, it sounds similar to Sleep’s ‘Dopesmoker’ with the harsh and powerful droning tone and it certainly hits like it in parts – a huge wall of distorted noise and roared vocals near the mid-section is both captivating and intimidating, very similar to Conan in some ways. Some real filthy riffs round the 4:30 mark lead into a slick solo which brings in a frantic feel which in turn leads to more feedback which acts as the curtain call for part 1 of the release.

The second part, “Volume 2” opens up with “Cosmic Ghost”. With some samples of wind blowing over a vast empty expanse backing up a clean acoustic guitar which has some droning to it, it has a real atmospheric feel to it. The vocals are cleanly delivered with that spaced out edge once again. The added string sections add an extra edge and the spaced out chanting like vocals of the slightly droning acoustic guitar really creates a relaxing feel, even as the distortion subtly begins to creep in halfway through. As the distortion grows, the slow and steady pace with acoustic layering remains, keeping it more restrained than the previous tracks.

“Haunter” opens up with a Sleep styled riff before really kicking in. Massive sounding and almost crushing in the delivery, the thunderous pounding just hammers away at a mesmerizing pace. The hazy vocals are layered just behind the pounding musical onslaught, almost lost in the noise and this mixing trick works to good effect, making you fully immerse yourself in the sonic landscape the track has created just to hear it. Luring you in and taking hold, it puts you under its spell, smothering you with the distortion and the wild almost atonal guitar solo before going into a harmonized riff section which acts as a slight reprieve before it goes more atonal and even heavier, pummeling you with harshness which persists until the end.

“Antibody” is the penultimate track and it has a more Black Sabbath feel to its intro riff. With more of a kick to it but still retaining the heavier edge of Haunter, it powers along with a great headbanging pace, bringing some up-tempo doom styled riffery with some great vocal harsh moments in the right places to really kick it in. With more precise and dissonant sounding leads over thundering rhythms, it embodies chaos whilst still having a solid groove and it sets up for the closing track quite well. “Aeons” brings a dramatic sounding close to the album. Howling wind samples with some atonal sounding chords and bass bring the track slowly in, almost mimicking a bell tolling. Slowly progressing, it has a very unsettling feel to it and this persists throughout. Some small melodic melody lines and heavily effects-laden vocals fade in an out, toying with the listener and keeping them on edge, anticipating the explosion of noise. Except this explosion doesn’t come. Instead it stays like this before slowly trailing off into silence, giving a strange and uneasy end to a strange album.

Overall, “Volume 1 & 2” is a fascinating release. The intensely heavy opening double of Volume 1 brings the intensity and despite some slight dips into this sound in “Volume 2”, the later quadruplet of tracks are more atmospheric and bring a different kind of intensity. One favours noise whilst two favours toying with the senses. Starting off with a harsh and heavy variant of sludge-laden doom, it evolves into a full on psychedelic sludge-doom hybrid which keeps you under its spell for the whole duration of the album. Head on into the Glimmervoid and follow the Seer.

(7/10 Fraggle)

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