Superseed –  Superseed  (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

It would be very easy to label Superseed as a 90’s grunge inspired outfit, but that would be lazy on my part, in the same way that not every modish indie band should be written up and written off as trying to be Oasis or every acoustic solo player wants to be Bob Dylan. Yes, you can make a few fairly educated guesses as to what will be in their collective record collections but there is so much more going on here and it is the peripheral details and odd meanderings away from that core sound that set these guys apart from their Pearl Jam worshipping, Nirvana deifying rivals.

Take a song like Messenger, Sabbath-esque lead vocals, gang harmonies, intense garage rock salvos and razor wire riffs…not a pair of long shorts or a plaid shirt in sight. But I will admit that the album does share a love of the core sonic vibe, one that conjures violence and speed, muscularity and melody, that coloured the Pacific North West’s most infamous scene, but thankfully it is an album that is happy to take a sonic road trip through any number of other points of rock history.

The Face That Followed You Back Home is a classic rock stomp updated for a new audience but not at the expense of the old school patched denim brigade’s love and No One’s Getting Out of Here Alive mixes modern rock muscle with sixties psychedelic pop vibrancy. Grungeadelia anyone? I didn’t see that coming but I’m so glad it did. Heavy Times is a wonderful funky blues beast, all strange staccato dynamics and sky-scrapping vocals and Static is just a timeless slice of intricate yet infectious rock.

It’s a cracker of an album, one that tips its hat to so many great eras and scenes, yet which lingers only long enough to take what it needs rather than getting wrapped up in nostalgia and pastiche. The result is an album which is very much of the here and now but which is happy to show the road it travelled to get here.