Sea Of Worry - Have A Nice Life: Review
is a Connecticut based experimental rock band who arose from the underground in 2008 when their debut record Deathconsciousness became an internet sensation and developed it's reputation as a modern masterpiece through online word of mouth. It was a long time before the band released their second studio album The Unnatural World in 2014, which was met with positive reviews from many, but not nearly to the level of the groups first record. After another long absence the duo is back and after a release of some varied singles are have dropped the already legendary bands third release.
Review By Lavender:
If you've never heard Deathconsciousness before, it is as good as everyone has always told you. The record blended so many different experimental rock genres together into an absolutely monstrous and mentally crushing record that is an experience everyone should have. I even enjoyed their follow-up record The Unnatural World quite a bit as well, and I'm still baffled to this day why it doesn't get more recognition for being as good as it is. On top of all this one of Dan Barrett's side projects Giles Corey released an absolutely phenomenal debut album between the first and second Have A Nice Life releases, so all around I have been very pleased by the work of this band and its members. That's why I was surprised to have met these singles with moderate shrugs for the most part. and the album is pretty much the same. Sea Of Worry isn't a bad record and I actually do enjoy most of its songs, but it falls far short of the brilliance of the bands first record, and even some of the creativity of their second.
The era and the record get started off with the title track Sea Of Worry, a song completely washed out in reverb with heavy waves of guitars and distant vocals passionately backing the instrumentation. I do think the track is decent but given just how washed out it is I think it could have been a lot better. So much of the edge is taken off of the heavy instrumental and shouted vocals when it can't really achieve its full impact. The second single was even weaker despite a grand sounding name, Lords Of Tresserhorn. I just never really came around to the song, it's sparse and has some great moments of surrounding noise but they never really amount to much of anything. There is just too much time were almost nothing worthwhile is going on and it seems very out of character for the band.
The third and final single was a much better approach. Science Beat is very lowkey but the songs distance adds a lot of personality to it. I love the ghostly vocals, driving keys and wailing guitar line a lot and its one of the richest moments on the record for me. I feel similarly about Everything We Forget a soaring and touching ambient piece that sounds like there was so much attention paid to the details of the track. It's an intriguing listen that sounds like watching the saddest parts of nature documentaries at the end of a long dark tunnel,
Trespassers W is the flip side of this, a song with plenty of noise but one that is very low impact overall and at just 4 minutes it never really gets its footing and is mostly forgettable. Dracula Bells is a longer song at almost 8 minutes but instrumentally it is about as conventional as I've ever heard the band go with a radio rock guitar riff that sounds straight out of the Sonic Youth playlist paired with a rickety drum passage. The middle passage of the song has some interesting distant vocals but I'm not really in love with the instrumental and it feels like not much of anything is going on.
One of the only moments on the record that truly reminds me of Have A Nice Life is the epic closing track Destinos. It starts off with a long passage of spoken word preaching, I'm not sure exactly the point they are trying to make as it starts off seemingly sensible enough, but as it gets into more and more absurd and preposterous territory the vocals begin to fade out. From that point on it transitions into a long but incredibly worthwhile closing passage that takes its time developing a blunt but meaningful post rock/goth rock fusion. The track is a really fitting closing moment and the biggest creative achievement of the record.
Sea Of Worry is a disappointing outing from a band that has been yet to let me down. The content of the record is really just okay, but the fact that it comes from a band that has always been so instrumentally groundbreaking paired with the fact that much of the record is so washed out the dark edge it could have had is taken away in the first place, is what I find so disappointing. While I will certainly be revisiting some of my favorite tracks from the record, it's the first time I could ever say that the songs on a Have A Nice Life record don't add up to be greater than the sum of their parts, unfortunately. 5/10
