Ducks Battle Satan

Despite my recent descent into Merzbow-world I thought I’d post on a band that, to me anyway, never really got the credit they deserved. Out of all of the early 1990’s slacker/alt/college rock bands Seam would have to be one of my favourites. A band whose only constant member was Sooyoung Park, they travelled the line between the slacker spirit of Superchunk and the melancholy of Spent and Yo La Tengo. Chuck in a little Archers of Loaf and the spirit of flannel shirts and taking oneself far to seriously is revived.
The band started in Chapel Hill with Mac from superchunk and some guy from Bitch Magnet. By the time of their second record Mr Park had relocated to Chigago and recruited an entrirely new band for their follow up, The Problem With Me. Sooyoung Park knew how to write a decent pop song and the opener Big Chang Little City is an absolute cracker. For some reason the reviewer on allmusic.com was pretty disparaging of The Pace is Glacial which I think is unfair. I mean sure, by the time of this, their last album, they’d moved to a poppier sound and the Spent references are pretty apt but there are some great songs and great hooks on this record. Any Seam record is worth checking out. They are no worse of better than this. I just like this one a lot right now and I think Seam deserve another look.

This entry was posted on March 22, 2008 at 7:06 am and is filed under Music, Seam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.