One may ask why I chose this album o’ all Seether albums. ¿Why not Disclaimer ( or Disclaimer II, their better update that came out just after ), their breakthru album with their 1st big hit, “Broken”, made with Amy Lee, lead singer o’ Evanescence & girlfriend to Seether lead singer, Shaun Morgan, till he fell into drug addiction & went to rehab after this album here? Well, for 1, neither that song nor the rest o’ that album has much interesting to talk ’bout: I like it well ’nough ( well, not “Broken”, which I always found as schmaltzy & boring as Evanescence’s “My Immortal” ), but they’re pretty standard post-grunge affair. ¿But why not Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces, which I my — admittedly limited — research indicates is their most successful, & whose glorious deep cut, “FMLYHM”, has recently risen from obscurity to claim the memetic status it deserves from mashup YouTube channels like the Council of El Horso? Well, I’m sure I’ll get to that album eventually, too.

The answer is that this album was my 1st introduction to this band & this ship is my ship, I’ll run it how I please. Plus, while the album’s lead single, “Remedy”, is somewhat known by people who know this band @ all, the rest o’ this album has some oddities that seem to evade attention, including a song with the strange title, “Burrito”.

Seether is a post-grunge band from South Africa, which calls into question its inclusion on a series ’bout nu-metal; but I’ve established a long time ago that “nu-metal” has ne’er been a meaningful term beyond capturing a general era o’ rock music, o’ which Seether had their prominence. This is certainly not the 1st post-grunge band included in this series that has included bands like Puddle of Mudd & Hinder, & it’s not as if post-grunge was e’er isolated from the nu-metal movement — Seether working so closely with Amy Lee o’ Evanescence, indisputably a nu-metal band, proves that &, in my humble opinion, solidifies their inclusion in this series.

1. Because of Me

Like quite a few nu-metal albums ( including both Three Days Grace albums we’ve looked @ ), this album starts with its best song, with its memorable weird riff pattern, soon after accompanied by weird louder, mo’ high-pitched riffs, its verses with bell-toll-like riffs @ the start o’ each line, the prechoruses which start with Shaun singing in a menacingly calm voice, only to louder & angrier by the end, only to return to that alt-rock perishing voice during the chorus, &, finally, we get the bridge, where the music slows for a second, Shaun yells out, “¡I WANT TO SEE YOU SUFFFFAAAAAHHHHHH!”, & then the guitarist goes apeshit. ¿What mo’ could 1 want?

Also, this song has some great Breaking-Benjamin-quality weird poetic lines, like the great emo quadruplet in the prechorus:

¿do you believe in love
like i believe in pain?
nobody dies for you
somebody pray for me

As well as the catchy line, “my philosophy is things are just as wrong as they seem”, with its 3 internal rhymes. ¿Do I know what this song’s ’bout? It’s obviously about some toxic relationship, which is what, like, half o’ all Seether songs are ’bout. The line, “& it’s because of me… ¿right?”, sounds sarcastic, but when you have the singer yelling that he wants to see you suffer, I mean… I dunno…

Grade: A

2. Remedy

I’m embarrassed to admit that ’twas only now, looking mo’ deeply into the lyrics, that I realized this song is ’bout drug withdrawal, not fucking. Granted, I’m happy ’bout that, as the gross lyrics, “frail, the skin is dry & pale”, are much better to stomach when ’bout the horrors o’ drug withdrawal & not the greater horrors o’ 2 strangers bumping uglies.

Also, in this context, the lyrics are much cleverer than I remember, with lines like, “but come sit by the fire & play awhile / but you can’t stay too long” symbolizing the high o’ being on drugs as a fairweather friend who strings one up, only to abandon one so suddenly — also, I will always praise a rock song with strong imagery, such as this song with someone sitting by a fire @ night, as rock music, especially nu-metal o’ this era, oft preferred abstract navel-gazing, which is far inferior — or the ironic line, “my heart explodes”.

& musically it’s certainly a fun song, definitely a good call for the lead single, with the catchy main riff, with the country-like guitar flares thru the verses & the foreboding drum beats ( I’m also pleasantly surprised by how well the opening guitar licks are picked up, given how oft nu-metal bands produce their music into digital sludge, presumably from the lingering influence o’, well, classic grunge, which didn’t do that shit ). I still don’t quite like this song as much as “Because of Me”, but it’s up there by this album’s standards.

Grade: A

Music Video

¡Ha, ha, ha!¡ This music video is awesome! We have Shaun, looking as greasy as e’er with this dark eyeliner, blue-tinted lips, a lip ring, & long hair, dressed like a carnival barker, hamming up the screen & rubbing half his face gainst a doorframe & traumatizing the dumb carnival customers with… a bunch of obese ol’ people in space suits. Then someone releases the green gases & the customers all become zombies. But it’s OK, as Cap’n Shaun Morgan has arrived with his ship to jam out while they dance like zombies &/or white people.

Grade: S

3. Truth

This is a solid song, especially the verses’ guitar pattern mixing mo’ acoustic-sounding strums with whate’er those bell-like riffs are; but there’s not too much interesting, especially the chorus, which has a very basic, gruffly-shouted pattern o’er walls o’ noise. I do like how unhinged Shaun’s screaming gets by the end, tho.

This song’s lyrics are interesting in that they’re ’bout people being dishonest & the lyrics are so vague that they feel like lying by omission themselves, like the protagonist themself is not willing to just say what they mean, with such elusive lines as, “¿if i gave you the truth would you keep it alive?” & “tho i’m close to wrong i’m no further from right”, which is just straight contradictory. Howe’er, again, the chorus, which takes up most o’ the lyrical time, is weak & feels irrelevant to the theme o’ the verses: it’s just the singer bemoaning how “beaten down” they are. ¿What’s that have to do with dishonesty? It’s just such a stale nu-metal / post-grunge phrase, something you’d expect from a Godsmack song.

Grade: C

Music Video

These fucking music videos, man. We have Shaun dressed up in some goofy suit with shades under a goofy camera angle acting as a referee to a boxing match ’tween… Li’l Me & Santa Claus. Meanwhile Shaun is shouting his lyrics into the camera. We then get another match ’tween… some woman out o’ Arabian Nights & someone with a Jack o’ Lantern as a head, where the Arabian Nights woman straight up murders the Jack o’ Lantern person, ripping pumpkin goop out o’ its eye, which is followed by a 3rd match ’tween Uncle Sam & the Easter Bunny. Interspersed ’tween these matches is some slutty ( no judging ) goth woman with too much black makeup riding round a tiny car. If this is not art, I do not want art.

Grade: S

4. The Gift

This is a slow song, so as a teenager I always thought this song was boring ’cause I only want to listen to fast, hard songs, ¡mom! Actually, I haven’t changed much, apparently, as I’m still not keen on this song. Also, now that I remember, I liked slow, sad songs like Blue October’s “Hate Me” just fine as a teen, & I can’t help view this song as an inferior version o’ that song ( note: to be fair, that song came out after this ), with both being songs ’bout self-hatred getting in the way o’ a relationship, but this song having far vaguer lyrics — nothing with the sharp imagery as “Hate Me”’s loved one holding the protagonist’s head as he’s puking from his alcoholism.

This comes to a menacing head with the chorus’s opening line, “i’m so afraid of the gift you give me”, which is s’posed to be some vague reference to love or something, but, I’m sorry for being such an immature child, just makes me think that this “gift” could be a venereal disease.

Also, ironically, I feel this song compromises on its quietude. While “Hate Me” does get louder during the choruses, the loudness is primarily backed by the singer, not the music; this song meanwhile immediately blasts into Seether’s typical wall o’ noise during the choruses, which feels to abrupt & kills whate’er intimacy this song was going for.

Still, the song isn’t bad: the verses are kind o’ nice, especially with that guitar pattern & whate’er the high-pitched noise is & Shaun’s singing works well. I think it’s the chorus that brings it all down.

Grade: C

Music Video

E’en this song has a weird music video wherein Shaun & the band are driven thru a Mexican town during Día de los Muertos. Near the end Shaun leaves an offering for some woman. ¿Did he know this woman? ¿Did Shaun have a girlfriend in Mexico or did he feel that the only proper way to mourn a loved one was to take a trip to Mexico during Día de los Muertos. I mean, I can totally fuck with that idea — Mexicans truly do have the best graves, & Día de los Muertos is right up there with Halloween as 1 o’ the best holidays in the world. Also, there’s some story ’bout a black car with white flames on it… Es lo que es…

Grade: 💀🌼🎉

5. Burrito

Ah, here we go: here’s that “Burrito” song I was talking ’bout. If you listen to this song or peruse the lyrics, you will find that nowhere is this popular Mexican delicacy so much as eluded to: nowhere in this song’s vague angsty lyrics o’, “i try to hide myself”, or, “i can’t believe in yesterday”, is there any mention o’ “i bite into your savory beef” or “i taste your thin wheat skin”. I guess the line, “my hands are stained with scum”, could refer to the grease from a burrito the protagonist was holding.

Thankfully, we have an answer to this mystery from an interview by Songfacts.com directly asking Shaun why the hell this song is named this. The answer is… the band heard Ozzy Osbourne vaguely mumble it on The Osbournes.

Morgan: Yeah, the song’s title was inspired by that, because we didn’t have a name for the song and we were watching The Osbournes. Ozzy was running around mumbling about spicy burritos. And it was one of those moments where it was like, this is a legendary man, but it’s a different side of him. It seemed real vulnerable and real personal. So we just picked it because it was a tongue-in-cheek homage to Ozzy Osbourne.

I should note that the song’s sound itself is weird, with this weird alienlike note pattern thruout the verses while Shaun changes his singing intonations wildly thruout the verses & choruses. So if any song deserves this title, it’s probably this 1. I don’t know how I feel ’bout it, but we all obviously know the only grade this song can get…

Grade: 🌯

6. Given

A genuinely chilling song with this dark bassline in the background while Shaun sings in a creepily quiet & smarmy voice creepy lines like, “dress up in your best so i can be proud of you”, “make you regret and make you afraid of me”, &, “never believe i’ll do this gently”, after which the protagonist becomes unhinged, shouting lines like, “you’re leading me on again / & i find it / & i like it”, ending the chorus asserting that “it” was “given” to them. I’m going to take it that the creepy vibes are intentional, not only due to the creepy music, but also lines like, “i’ll tell you it’s all for you / then deny it” & the final line, a twist on the final chorus line, “it’s all for me”, solidifying the protagonist’s self-absorption. It reminds me o’ Three Days Grace’s own deep cut, “Let You Down”, & as much as I liked that song, I think this song might be better, with its much mo’ specific & uglier lyrics & its sparser music.

Grade: A

7. Never Leave

Let’s be real here: this is just your basic hair metal ballad, & I’ve ne’er been fond o’ those. I like some o’ the singing & guitar work, especially the quiet notes @ the end o’ the bridge, & I do feel some nostalgia for this song, but I’m not going to pretend I have anything to say ’bout this song.

Grade: C

8. World Falls Away

For some reason I really liked this song as a teen. It’s certainly a memorable song that stands out ’mong the others due to how weird it sounds, with its tipsy-turney-sounding chorus, the weird main riff o’ several quick riffs, a pause, & then 2 slow riffs, & the… funk notes during the bridge while Shaun sings in a weak voice, “I’m just like you…”.

The lyrics also seem to be just vague angst: I don’t know if this song talking ’bout the world “turning to gray” & falling away is ’bout the protagonist being depressed or if this is another “I’M NOT A PART O’ YOUR SYSTEM” song. Considering how off-kilter the whole song is & the protagonist shouting @ the top o’ their lungs, “¡SHUT UP!”, @ the end, I choose to believe this song is ’bout someone hearing voices in their head trying to take them o’er. I mean, the 1st line is literally, “must be something they’re hiding…”. ¿Who’s they? The aliens — ¡the grays trying to turn the world gray! — trying to take o’er, that’s who. The line, “I’m just like you, just not a fool”, emphasizes that the difference ’tween our protagonist & the rest o’ the sheeple is that our protagonist has received the deep secrets, which are torturing them from inside. Yes, yes… the mo’ I think ’bout it, this is the correct interpretation o’ this song.

Grade: 👽

9. Tongue

I always liked this song, primarily due to its weird lyrics, especially the line, “should i grow another shell in which to live”, which I know I have stolen for my strange poetry. Also, the song title is “Tongue”. Ironically, this is probably the most dramatic o’ songs on this album, a suicide anthem, especially the bridge, where the protagonist literally sings, “goodbye cruel world”, in increasing desperation. But honestly, I like this juxtaposition: I can say from past experience that suicidally depressed people oft tend to be loopy — it’s a mental illness, after all — & this song reminds me o’ Nirvana’s best song, “Serve the Servants”, where brutal lyrics like, “i tried hard to have a father / but instead i had a dad” & mixed with bizarre nonsense like, “if she floats then she is not a witch like we had thought”. Plus, the line ’bout growing another shell in which to live is relevant, evoking the vain hope o’ reincarnation into a better life after death.

Grade: 🐚

10. I’m the One

& here we have a barn burner ’bout a father raping his teenaged daughter. Unfortunately, it’s not as good as “Given”: the rocking music does not work for such a sinister topic as well as the creepy basslines in “Given”, & while we have similarly creepy lines like, “come be my little queen”, this song is a bit too up in your face ’bout its gross subject matter, just coming right @ you @ the beginning with, “he’s drunk, she’s seventeen, he’s like, come be my fuckdoll, girl”. To be fair, I think the barn-burning music is meant to make this an angry protest song rather than a song to rock out to. ( “‘Hey, Drake, I hear you like ’em young’; me dancing in the background, ‘O, shit, this n—— going cra —’” ).

The chorus is also a weird contrast, with the protagonist asking someone to tell the teenaged girl, “I’m the only one”, insisting, “I won’t hurt her like everyone”, but ending with, “I don’t deserve her”. I assume this protagonist is separate from the rapist dad & is someone in love with her — hopefully around her age — but is hindered by her trauma from the aforementioned father-raping, both on her end & with the protagonist feeling guilty — hence the, “I don’t deserve her”.

According to Genius, this song is a reference to an earlier song by Seether, “Love Her”, which I don’t remember @ all, because it’s a slow song, so as a teenager I always thought this song was boring ’cause I only want to listen to fast, hard songs, ¡mom! Apparently Shaun had a girlfriend who was prostituted by her rich family since she was 12. He also goes on this sus tangeant ’bout how beautiful women are tragic ’cause they can “get anything [they] want from the world” ( except not being raped as a child, ’course — that’s off the table ), & thus, “have no talent other than your parents that fucking were pretty”, which doesn’t e’en sound like a coherent English sentence. I wouldn’t call this “incel” rhetoric, as it’s sympathetic — albeit condescendingly — & not bitter & jealous, but it is sus.

Grade: 🤨

11. Simplest Mistake

Another perplexing song. We have this weird duh-nuh-nuh-nuh, duh-nuh-nuh-nuh main riff, this topsy-turvy verse rhythm — which, granted, I do quite like — followed by a very regular Seether-style chorus with pleading vocals & walls o’ noise. The lyrics are a vague mixture o’ personal conflict, class conflict, — with the 2 lines, “self-made millionaires won’t take ideas / from all the little plebians”, & nowhere else in this song is this theme hinted @ again — conflicts with oneself, specifically with the chorus having lines ’bout feeling like one is “losing again” & have “lost everything”. During the bridge the protagonist rants @ someone, accusing them o’ having some kind o’ “involvement in my demise” while giving them “your open hand”. ¿Is this related to the self-made millionaires in some way?

Grade: B

12. Diseased

What stands out the most with this song is its creative structure: Seether hasn’t been clinging to tightly to the verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus structure already, but here we have the weirdest structure I’ve seen from them, with 3 different sections competing for the right to be called the “chorus”: we have ’tween the 1st 2 verses what sounds mo’ like a prechorus that edges the listener by promising a chorus afterward that doesn’t come ( pun not intended ), after the 2nd verse we have what sounds mo’ like a chorus, but which only appears here this 1 time till a shortened version appears @ the very end, followed by what I guess I will now call the prechorus repeated, & then followed by a different chorus, which is repeated again after the bridge.

The lyrics are much less interesting — in fact, probably the least interesting we’ve seen from Seether so far. It’s your standard nu-metal / post-grunge vague abstract angst, with lines like, “feast your eyes on my disdain” & “scream if you still hate my name”, nothing nearly as memorable as growing another shell in which to live & far ’way from the strong imagery employed in “Remedy”. I mean, the name, “Diseased”, is such a stock nu-metal / post-grunge title. & all 3 choruses are repetitive, repeating the same 2 lines.

The music is a bit better, but not the best on this album. We have this nice slowly-building sparse guitar plucking, foreboding singing from Shaun during the verses & the prechorus. It’s too bad that the 3rd chorus — the 1 with the lines, “if i decide that i am alive / then i’m diseased & ungrateful” — is repeated mo’ than the 2nd, — the 1 with the line, “come sit close to me” — ’cause the 2nd sounds much better.

Grade: B

13. Plastic Man

This is a short, sad song with acoustic playing with mo’ vague abstract lyrics ’bout being a disappointment to someone or something. I’m not particularly fond o’ it, honestly, tho I wouldn’t call it bad.

The central theme doesn’t work well for me, tho: the protagonist describes himself as a “plastic man” & immediately after says, “wish i could be the one you could be proud of” & then much later, “i am a perfect sell / just wrap me up with bows and flowers”, implying that being a “plastic man” should imbue the protagonist with special value… except plastic is widely associated with cheap, valueless trash, not something you’d wrap in bows & flowers. ¿Wouldn’t something like gold or diamond work better? I understand that plasticity is meant to represent inauthenticity, but jewelry isn’t all that real, either — its cultural value isn’t: it’s just rocks that look shiny on the surface, but have no real material value beyond that. The theme seems to be a hidden inauthenticity, — having the illusion o’ value that isn’t really there — but nobody has the illusion that plastic has value. If anything, plastic is mo’ honest than jewelry: plastic is up-front ’bout how fake & worthless it is. The plastic bottle o’ Coke I got from McDonalds tonight doesn’t express any delusion that it has any deep value: it might as well say out loud, “go ahead & throw me away, I know I’m worthless junk, & I’m perfectly fine with that”. Then again, maybe I have this song backward: maybe the song is asserting that plastic does have value, but society doesn’t acknowledge such — that society should put bows and flowers o’er plastic, because while it may not look valueable, it is… ’Cept that still doesn’t work, ’cause plastic truly is valueless: there is no contrast or illusion ’tween what plastic is & how society views it; plastic is both clear physically & metaphorically. & this certainly doesn’t work for the line, “someday i’ll know my place”, for, as we’ve established, plastic very well knows its lowly place.

14. Interlude/Outro

On the original CD this was a hidden track without a title listed on any o’ the packaging, tho ’twas split off into its own track, unlike how most CDs would handle hidden tracks, by putting them @ the end o’ the final labeled track after several minutes o’ silence ’tween ( strangely, the previous track does still have several minutes o’ silence @ the end ).

Shaun declares that this song will be “the jazzy 1”, while, indeed, the band starts playing some jazzy notes, & then Shaun starts talking in Afrikaans, — not the most common language in South Africa as a whole, despite what many westerners think, but the most common language in the region in which Seether was formed &, presumably, the language that a’least Shaun grew up with — followed by singing in Afrikaans. ( In contrast to what I said in the previous review regarding the Spanish lyrics in To The Pain…, I did not study Afrikaans in high school, nor do I know it now, so I have to rely on translation software to help me here. I don’t e’en know if I knew what language this song was in when I 1st heard it ). From what I gathered from translating it, it’s a silly song where Shaun asks the audience to come with him — with a specific mention o’ leaving the other band members behind, to which said band members provide no comment — now that the album is o’er. It’s a fun, catchy song that sounds nothing like anything else I’ve hard from Seether. Honestly, I wish Seether would make mo’ songs in Afrikaans.

Grade: A

Conclusion

I told you this album was mo’ interesting to write ’bout than you originally suspected. But I will get to that “Fuck Me Like You Hate Me” album eventually, too.

Final Grade: B