Since emerging back in 2011 within the sea faring surroundings of Portsmouth, British crossover outfit Seething Akira has been teasing away at rich attention with increasing success. We suggest though that it has been a mere nagging compared to the hunger the band can and should expect with the release of debut album Sleepy Skeletor. It is a web of alternative metal and electro rock imagination with plenty more to entice and ensnare. It is a sleepless affair rousing body and spirit which even in its calmer moments has the body bouncing and imagination feasting.
Created by Charlie Bowes (songwriter/keyboardist/vocalist) and Kit Conrad (lead vocalist), the band has leap from local success to national recognition through their sounds and a dynamic live presence which over the years has seen them shares stages with the likes of Skindred, The Qemists, Hacktivist, Senser, Don Broco, and Pop Will Eat Itself as well as play Bloodstock Festival, Victorious Festival, Breakout Festival, Mammothfest amongst others. This year the band was chosen as one of five upcoming bands, alongside, Saint Apache, Damn Dice, The Rocket Dolls and The Sixpounder, to support Pitchshifter on their first UK tour in ten years. The Incoming Transmission EP of 2012 was when our fascination with Seething Akira began, it becoming so much keener as for so many others through their acclaimed 2015 single Airstrike, a song frequently eclipsed and more than matched by the offerings within Sleepy Skeletor.
Walking a fine balance between alternative metal, industrial rock, and electro punk; never fully committing to any but always entangling the richest traits of all and more, Sleepy Skeletor opens properly with The Monster from Brussels. Instantly the synths of Bowes provide an infectious pulse, the guitar of Harvey Ware swiftly adding its lure before the rest of the band jump in with fevered energy to create a Senser like confrontation. Thick and imposing, it is a captivating wall of temptation creating a grooved stroll alongside a Beastie Boys inspired vocal arousal rather easy to become addicted to, its tenacity interrupted by melodic washes of intimation and seduction.
It is an outstanding start quickly matched by recent single Matching Poles of Magnets. With steelier textures to its electro metal predation, bands like Axis Mundi and Silent Descent coming to mind, the track twists and turns with instinctive and rapacious adventure before Half Empty brings a warm calm to the senses. Immediately vocals echo this mellow breath with their melodic unity but equally a rising discontent in the heart of the song brews as things become more intense and irritable. It never reaches an aggressive state though, revolving through melancholic elegance and emotive exposure as a weave of rich enterprise wraps vocal reflection.
I Am The Devil, another single released earlier this year follows, instantly infests ears with its electro metal rumble and a hook which needs meres seconds to have us lustfully wanting more. Something akin to G.R.I.M meets dirt encrusted Pop Will Eat with the rousing catchiness of Hadouken, the track throbs and snarls as the rhythmic prowess and incitement of bassist Richard Ellis Speaight and drummer Stu Radcliffe manipulate.
Featuring Olly Simmons from Brighton band The Qemists, Backlash is next up and similarly merges heavy almost dissonant attitude and sound with electronic trespass as it prowls the senses. It is a predacious edge which never dissipates across the track’s mercurial but persistently invasive landscape. Another of the songs released prior to the album as a single in 2018 ensuring its anticipation was heightened; the absorbing encounter passes over attention to the outstanding Pack Animals. It too has a whiff of Senser to its emotionally and lyrically charged incitement; synth and guitar weaving an intimation of intrigue and danger around the threat of the rhythms as once again vocals irrepressible entice.
The character of successor Paralysed is similarly natured and conjured but swiftly evolving into a melodic croon and seduction which inspired even greater participation before the cycle repeats with greater volatility but equally greater elegance in its respective moments.
The album ends with firstly Even Angels Break Hearts which sees Dani Uziel guesting and finally Disconnect. The first of the two is a fluid blend of sonic antagonism and melodic beauty with Uziel’s tones simply beguiling, she almost like a siren luring ears into Conrad’s feral attack and the song’s tempestuous depths. The second provides three and a half minutes of electro punk metal thick in attitude and malcontent but equally rich in rousing energy and adventurous imagination.
Major attention upon Seething Akira has been a little overdue to our mind; Sleepy Skeletor should remedy that, arousing a whole new tide of fans to their insatiably and dramatically potent sound.
Sleepy Skeletor is out now; available on all major streaming platforms.
Upcoming shows:
Sleepy Skele-tour:
July 6th – Anvil, Bournemouth (Album release show)
July 7th – The 27 Club, Liverpool
July 8th – Mulberry Tavern, Sheffield
July 9th – Satan’s Hollow, Manchester
July 10th – The Underground, Plymouth
July 11th – Fat Lil’s Bar, Witney
July 12th – The Unicorn, Camden
July 13th – The Junction, Ashford
July 14th – The Sussex Arms, Tunbridge Wells
July 15th – The Joiners, Southampton
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August 25th – Electrowerkz London supporting CUBANATE
August 26th – BYLINE FESTIVAL, Pippingford Park, Ashdown Forest with Pussy Riot, Badly Drawn Boy, The Vapors, The Blow Monkeys, John Cleese, Hugh Grant, Alexie Sayle…
November 19th – Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth supporting PITCHSHIFTER
http://www.seethingakira.com/ https://www.facebook.com/seethingakira https://twitter.com/SEETHINGAKIRA
Pete RingMaster 03/07/2018
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
The flames of trombonist Ieuan Williams and saxophonist Jon Pryce open up the following Get Off/Get On, lighting the way to another persuasive saunter ridden by the increasingly captivating vocals of Conner. There is a touch of [Spunge] meets King Prawn to the track, a tasty flavouring quickly ignited by the band’s own raucously individual enterprise.
Produced by James LeRock Loughrey (Skindred, White Zombie, My Vitriol, Bjork, Def Leppard), Valley of Thorns kicks off with its lead single, Mind Games teasing the senses with its sonic mist before boldly strolling through ears with a Deftones meets Spinnerette like captivation. There is a haunting air and emotive depth to the song yet it has a virulent swing to its gait and rhythmic persuasion which has the body swaying and appetite greedy in no time. A track epitomising the seductive persuasion and nagging irritability in The Kut’s sound, it is pure mesmerism which has become stronger and more striking across multiple plays.
The following Realizationship is similarly woven if even more irritable and too a web of seduction and sonic violence which never stops twisting and turning within its storm. The song lacks the final striking essences of its predecessor yet with teasing grooves and fury loaded flames of melody it masterfully hits the spot and an imagination already submissive to the inventively evolving landscapes the band shares within songs.
It opens up with the swiftly captivating Wanderlust, riffs and melodic enticement soon colluding in their persuasion of the listener. Probing rhythms court the sultry grooves emerging within the heated and quickly infectious proposal; strong and similarly alluring vocals completing the tempting scene. There is a swing to the song’s gait and magnetic enterprise in its melodic and sonic interplay while the chorus is one where it would simply be rude not to join in with.
It is a stunning start to the EP, essences of early Mudvayne, Spineshank, and indeed Anti-Clone coming to mind as it ignites body and spirit before passing its willing victim over to the waiting infectious animus of Last Ones. With a seriously catchy chorus breaking up yet managing to inflame or at least accentuate its ferocious confrontation, the song similarly impresses while recruiting eager involvement in its contagious tempest.
The release opens up with Cocytus, an instrumental of imposing grandeur and looming shadows creating the climate you would expect surrounding the domain and god of the underworld. Guitars eventually encroach on the deceitful grace of the air creating a link to waiting venomous jaws as the track flows into the predacious animosity and corrosive depths of Styx. As the guitars of James Graham and Chris Kelsall gnaw and taunt the senses with riffs and grooves, vocalist Liam Stark descends and invades with his raw and potent mix of attacks, the frontman as the sound around him openly showing a growth in snarl and dexterity since that last EP. The guitars continue to weave a web of creative deceit, lures of infectious and seductive design woven to violate while the biting beats of Mike Collins and the tenebrific lines of bassist Jason McEwan have nothing in mind except merciless trespass.