SEER
CANADIANS UNDERGO LOWS AND HEIGHTS
Relative newcomers, having formed in 2014, Seer have already set out their stall as ones to watch in the doom scene. Across three conceptually connected releases, the latest being Vol.
III & IV, the Vancouver, British Columbia quintet have created a dynamic niche by doling out distinctive sludge rock and acoustic folk, homogenous to their picturesque homeland.
“Where we live, it’s hard to escape the natural world,” says guitarist/songwriter Kyle Taveres, “and considering the price we pay to live here, if we aren’t embracing the natural beauty that surrounds us, we might as well move along to more affordable locales. In the time between our previous project and Seer, I really started taking advantage of my surroundings. It was during this time I realised I wanted to do my best to harness the power of the Pacific Northwest in the music I was writing. Being from the same bio-region as us, Wolves In The Throne Room did much to aid in that revelation.”
The rolling Goatsnake/ Baroness-hewn riffs of Vol. III certainly bring to mind the sheer imposing scale of mountainous terrains, on top of which the anthemic vocals of Bronson Lee Norton – whose style recalls the gothic croon of Danzig – battle against cavernous roars. In contrast, the acoustic Vol. IV pacifies through its aquatic ebb and flow.
“If anything makes us stand out from the pack, it is our unwillingness to join it,” Kyle confirms. “That’s not to say we have any problem with bands who do an old thing well, we’re just not actively trying to fulfil every doom/sludge trope that has been standardised over the years. We take influence from bands like Thin Lizzy in the way they approached making music: peaks and valleys, songs that inspire varying emotional responses, and so on. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, but to keep adding more mediocrity and sameness to a saturated genre would feel like a failure.”