Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)When I first listened to Seabound's Beyond Flatline, I wasn't taken with it. I, like many other people, dismissed the effort as another edition in the same EBM genre, not taking in all the little things that make the band differently. While that perhaps wasn't fair, it has been warranted as of late because of the reproduction of what sells becoming a staple of that (and any other) musical outlet. After sitting it aside for a week and then returning to it, however, I found quite a few things that allowed it to grow on me. I noticed that many of the songs went outside of what I was accustomed to with first releases, allowing me the electronic sounds I've become accustomed to but also allowing me a twist that I liked. Within the worlds endowed with both vocals and beats, there was the most important factor -lyrics. And, ultimately, that is one of the essential qualities in making something memorable.
There are a few tracks on the album that I would think of sitting aside were I scanning it. Still, there are many quality pieces and a few that grew on me almost immediately. I personally liked "Poisonous Friend" and its attempt to capture what it feels like to have someone at your side that is frightening to behold. The lyrics paint an interesting picture of someone in a relationship with another person and the noticing of what they are that comes as time progresses. "You frighten me" mingles hand in hand with watching her and wondering how it feels to feel like her when she "annihilates a friend" while being afraid to show that. And that's pretty interesting. I also thought "Torch" was a nice storytelling piece, using analogy to showcase some interesting imagery. "One by one we sacrificed our pawns for the protection of our queen" starts the tale, leading down a road twined with images of someone torching the kingdoms we all build upon the properties build and bordered by emotion. And then there were a lot of other varietized works that caught my audio eye when I sifted through the works. Pieces like the more sadistic "Digital," touting someone innocent that was "attracted to trouble" as they're taken and sampled, are also worth mentioning. "I took her to a forest, I tied her to a tree, I monitored the action, it's astounding how ruthless we can be." That seems to show another side of the same compendium that offered up songs of sadness in "Soul Diver" and the touching "Watching Over You," and I'm a fan of changing seasons within the same album.
When listening to them, it should be mentioned that they aren't always pulsing for the dancefloor. Some songs have beats that bleed involuntary movement from my arms and a tempo tapping through my feet when I'm listening to them, but some simply paint pictures and set moods. While that isn't something that everyone looks for, I personally found the diversity blinding and I found myself wanting to play them more and more as the listening sessions we spent together stretched on. It's commendably worth obtaining.
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