Pontefract youngsters Seed have already chalked up a number of gigs with the likes of Graveltrap, Broadzilla, The Suffrajets, Hooker, The Holiday Plan, and Vacant Stare, so for 16 year olds (or thereabouts), the kids are seemingly alright. But take a closer look and you’ll find the teen tearaways have been a band since 1999 – when they were 12 – so it’s no surprise to hear that ‘Forever Close At A Distance’ shows oodles of maturity and potential. Firmly British in sound, but with American pop-punk sounding guitars, comparisons to bands like The Mercury League or Joe Ninety would probably be pretty relevant about now.
This six-track EP, which contains five songs and an acoustic version of one of them, is by no means the finished article, but for ones so young there’s an astonishing amount of talent on show. The gruff vocals, a little Leatherface-y at times, belittle their relative youth. The guitars are spikey, yet more melodic than the driving vocals, so at times the band aren’t quite as rough as they maybe could be. That doesn’t mean they lose any of their effectiveness mind you, with tracks like ‘A New Home’ and ‘Insomnia’ proving to be worthy of a couple of listens. I guess if I’m being pedantic the lyrics are a little GCSE-English in their expression, which I guess you could argue would only be fair if the band are teenagers, but as the music is so well performed, I probably wanted a little more lyrically too.
There’s an undeniable talent on show here, and having herad good things about them this EP probably isn’t a fluke or a flash in the pan. The band now need to kick on and keep improving and developing their sound. I’d like to see more bite in the guitars to match the vocals and with a little spit and polish Seed could really make an impact.
www.seedsworld.com
Paul