SEER SEEKER – TO THE CORE
Release Date: 13th December 2023
When something comes across your ears dubbed as ‘rap’s newest phenomenon’ it’s hard not to take some time to sit down and listen to it. That is what happened here with SEER SEEKER and December 2023’s TO THE CORE. Now, rap isn’t something that Hardbeat tends to cover, that is unless it’s combined with some nu-metal style beats and a dose of heaviness that moves it into that alternative metal vibe. Once you get through a couple of intro tracks that are deep within that rap area, you come to ‘CHASE GOLD STAY COLD’ and that’s where everything explodes.
Verses feature the exact sort of vibe you would expect. There are catchy beats that have you bouncing around before you’ve even really worked out what’s happening. This infectiousness begins with the album opener, ‘STARLIGHT’, in truth, and is unrelenting for the full twenty-one and a half minutes that the album covers. Comparisons to turn of the century nu-metal adjacent artists are too in your face to pass by without commenting. ‘GONE TOO LONG’ picks up where the aforementioned ‘CHASE GOLD STAY COLD’ leaves us. There’s an gritty atmosphere that runs throughout the track, straddling the industrial vibe that many nu-metal acts have done before. Reassuringly, there’s nothing on this album that makes you think you’ve heard it before. Whether it be electronic beats that merge with filthy riffs or the vocals that are consistently oozing attitude, there are similarities but this is something a little different.
What is most reassuring about TO THE CORE, though, is that it is an album. Not a bunch of singles that should be dissected and lobbed into various playlists with the hope that enough people will listen to each on that it makes everything worthwhile. Here, each track has a purpose as part of a wider piece of art. SEER SEEKER sits on that borderline of what Hardbeat is all about, but one thing is for certain: it goes HARD.