Seabound - Speak In Storms (Limited) Mp3

How I've waited and waited for Seabound to release a new album, the past eight years didn't go quickly I can tell you that. There were starts and stops, rumors and retractions. For all the buzz which their last studio album, the triumphant 'Double Crosser' attracted it was remarkable how quickly they were forgotten. Now part of this is no doubt due to Frank Spinath's numerous side projects which he embarked upon not long after Seabound put out their third full length and this remains the main problem 'Speak In Storms' has.

He's spread himself too thin with all of the other bands he joined and somewhere along the line what was special about Seabound just vanished. Don't be too perturbed, the music on here is fantastic. Very well designed and extremely varied but some of the words... what am I listening to? Is this middle age creeping in or even worse, has Seabound simply become the day job and the fans needed to be sated. Whatever the case, this is a maddeningly uneven piece of work. They state they spent two years on this but given how busy one of them is and the fact that they both live on different continents, it's plain for one and all to see that the end result has suffered.

This pair transcended the idiotic 'futurepop' tag they were branded with by the time of the second album and were well on the way to becoming part of another style which is rarer than a four leaf clover: darkwave. I have no doubt that this new one could have gone in a much more imaginative direction if they'd have been more in-sync with one another but it feels like they've grown apart over the years and that this could well be the last thing Seabound ever do. This is not a bad record, but it is incredibly underwhelming despite the title.

Maybe with time this one will grow on me but as it stands right now I'm pretty ambivalent about how they've chosen to proceed. You can easily hear how a more acoustically-based approach was no doubt played around with during the initial stages of recording but rather than step out into the unknown, they have chosen to play it safe and stick with what both they and their fans have come to expect. We all know what Spinath is capable of on his own, but what about Martin Vorbrodt? He's the one who comes through all of this shining brightest.

Its time that we found out. I imagine that we will soon enough.