Seethe - ZEN (0)

After reviewing their previous album "Departures" with fair and common praise, here I sit with the brand new EP from the glitchy industrial metal project with trap metal influences sprinkled throughout. Not much has changed in the three months that have passed between that album and this EP. The only new news from Seethe's camp is that they will be  opening for King 810 on August 26th, 2021. And, I mean, that's fucking awesome. However, let's dive right in "Zen (0)" and see how it fairs.



Looking back at "Departures", my major complaint about the album was the overpowering bass that crushed a lot of the other sounds on the album. While Seethe does not back down from incorporating crunchy blasts of bass throughout the EP, I find it much more tolerable and quite enjoyable. Rather than rattling my car's speakers to the point where I thought one of them was going to bust or absolutely destroying my ears, the levels are very well balanced. I took note of this on the first track, 'A Fool's Errand', whose heaviness was easily noted. Even in the beginning of the song, when Seethe took breaks between overpowering screaming and moments of silence, did the bass never outright takeover another beat. Well done on the mixing this time around. 

'Perch' begins off with standard heavy metal riffs during the first twenty seconds which had me worried for a moment. However, as Seethe does, they soon crumpled up that bit of generic form and threw in their glitchy mechanics to the mix. The riffs are present throughout the song, however they are cut up and brutalized in between computer generated blips and growling vocals. The final song on the EP, 'A Means To An End', contains a dark ambient build-up featuring static, glitchy noise, the sounds of water dripping from a pipe in some kind of sewer or cavern, and a barely audible pained whisper. This is brought to an end around the fifty-second mark where a more melancholic beat plays - at least melancholic for seethe. Rather than beating me over the head with a million beats per minute, Seethe takes a step back and allows each note and rhythm to hit in cordially. 

All-in-all, this is an EP that is expected from Seethe. It hits all the right notes, but doesn't stray too far from Seethe's formula. Harsh electronics wrapped in a metal blanket filtered through glitchy processes and lots of screaming. The song length was what I expected as well, with each track lasting between two to two-and-a-half minutes. I would like to see Seethe evolve their sound or formula a bit more on their next release so it's not as predictable. Nonetheless, what I have received on "ZEN (0)" is well executed. Seven out of ten! 

This review was commissioned through our Ko-fi page.
Jul 13 2021