Very hard record to write about, this. Not because it’s bad; it ain’t, it’s quite good. It’s just that, that’s the start, finish, middle and everything else. Seafoam is sort of…okay. It’s fine. It has lively guitars, they can write a pretty attractive melody and Lucinda Livingstone can sing a bit. Has a spunky energy about the whole affair. It simply says nothing new whatsoever and, whilst being a pleasing enough listening time out of your life, it’s a bit forgettable.
Which is a great shame. That energy suggests, with some more judicious channelling, this two-piece have some serious work inside of them. As it is, you listen to the guitar and tune on the opener, ‘One Young Man’, and you are transported, lock stock and barrel back to early ’90s Seattle. No bad thing perhaps, but, by definition, someone else got there first. To be fair to vocalist/guitarist Livingstone and drummer Conor Dawson, they do describe themselves as a Riot Grrrl outfit, so perhaps complaining about lack of originality is a touch churlish.
With the raucous axe-work and rattling drums, the duo certainly do mean it. You cannot doubt the dedication of a song like ‘Berlin’. One suspects they are a formidable and noisy live proposition.
The songs themselves do not shy away from subject matter that matches the primal sound. A theme of mental illness and society’s attitudes to it wraps itself around the whole album. It’s bare and raw, that’s for sure. And the tumult that mental illness can cause in the individual is very explicitly mirrored in the anguish and visceral power of Seafoam.
All of which makes it quite hard to judge this record. It has utter purity and soul, in the true sense of the word. It’s punky, powerful and even has some glistening hooks. One just senses there’s a more creative record in them somewhere.