Seemless is a hard rock band, straight up hard rock. Boasting ex-members of Killswitch Engage, Shadows Fall, and Overcast, this is kind of unexpected. What Have We Become is their second full-length. Their last one, a self-titled album, showed a bit of promise for what they could do in the future.
Unfortunately, this Seemless record is mostly unremarkable. The sound is good. The tone is decent. The vocals would be what I consider the major weak spot on What Have We Become. The production is a bit on the sterile side as well. There is a lot of Soundgarden worship/emulation here, more so than even their first album. "In My Blood" kind of forced me to do a double take. It was a bit different than what I was expecting initially, but then the band settled into exactly what I thought it would sound like soon after. The bass tone is actually really nice sounding. "Cast No Shadow" begins with an excellent slower tempo riff that pops up throughout the song. The random screaming vocals are pretty terrible. "Numb" has another decent groove to the riff. The lead over top is not so hot and actually a bit annoying. There are a couple of decent vocal harmony bits, but I wish the screeched "Yeah"s and "oh"s were completely nonexistent.
The lyrics to What Have We Become are also overly melodramatic and very mainstream rock in a U2-like artistically political type of way. My view on lyrics tends to be extremely cynical anyhow, but these border on hokey. In "Eyes of a Child" the lyrics go "...Our foundation for the next generation, Tell them life is in their hands. Our demonstrations will be salvation, Can't you see it in their eyes..." It is unbelievably bad. "The Deep Below" has some tasty nuggets as well. "We feed and we bleed off the life in the earth. We take and we rape the life in the earth..." which is then punctuated with an "Oh Yeah" and "Ow!" for good measure. Seriously, that is in there.
What Have We Become could be so much better. It is lackluster in almost every way. However, I can see how this could be popular in a mainstream rock sort of way. But I do not hear very much feeling on the record. Mostly it is that the production is just too slick and clean, but also the record is overly sterile and that bothers me to no end. What else is there to say other than if you are not into overly melodramatic lyrics backed by pure unadulterated alternative radio rock worship, steer clear of this record.
