Seawalker: Every Love Unwinds
Lathelight Ltd

Not a whole lot of clarifying info accompanies this fifty-minute Seawalker opus but suffice it to say it's a new post-Accelera Deck project spearheaded by Chris Jeely who pairs his vocals and molten guitar with the fellow axe-work of Wes Daniel and drumming of Beth Ragland. Yep, it's a bass-less trio but you'd probably never hear the instrument anyway given the band's volcanic wail. Seawalker builds on the sound Jeely explored on the album A Landslide of Stars and the 7-inch Songshape, and offers a stylistic middle ground between the experimental guitar-based explorations of Accelera Deck and the concise song-structured attack of a hellacious metal band.

Both sides come variously to the fore during the album's seven tracks, though vocal tracks predominate. “The Dead Sea” (whose lyrics “Every love unwinds, and drifts on the Dead Sea” provides the album title) unleashes the album with a maelstrom of guitar shredding courtesy of Jeely and Daniel; singing appears too though one strains to hear let alone decipher the words due to the deafening roar. “Slut” (“Sleep and sex the saviour of your soul”) and “Urchin” roar a little less tempestuously, while text by Sonic Youth is recited in “Flower,” though again it's barely audible when coupled with a writhing behemoth of guitar roar and drum tumult. A funky drum groove kicks “Tomorrow / Drive” into gear with Jeely's verses clearly heard against the band's controlled backing—a relatively benign beginning for an eighteen-minute throwdown where the guitars' obsessive snarl just gets heavier and heavier as they drill a two-chord riff into the ground. The instrumental “Revolver” is reminiscent of Accelera Deck in its drone-like flow (listen closely and beyond the jagged guitar stream at the forefront the faint glow of a placid melody can be detected), as is the atmospheric album closer “Imaginary.” Every Love Unwinds is a powerful and loud outing, to put it mildly, but not an off-putting one, though one wishes a few more Accelera Deck-styled pieces had been included to create a more even balance between vocal songs and instrumentals.

July 2008