Not having been involved in the scene prior to 2024, at least not in an active way where I was looking for new music, I am new to Sea Sleeper and not familiar with their sound or their two previous releases, 2019’s Nihilism EP and 2021’s debut album Nostophobia. However, after listening to Burden of Antlers, let’s just say I’m more than intrigued to go back and listen to both.
This isn’t your typical extreme metal offering. Sure there are chunky passages of distorted guitars. Screamy vocals. Blasting drums. But there’s so much more to this album. I don’t want to describe it as a “thinking person’s metal album”, but I can’t really think of any other way to put it. It’s not one of those albums you just throw on for background noise. You need to experience this album.
The tempo changes alone are mesmerizing, but it’s more than that. There’s an element of Tool influence in here, but not in a “let’s copy Tool” kind of way. The essence is there without going into fourteen-minute-long ridiculousness, yeah I said it. While the second track on the album, Manifestor, does break the eight-minute mark, at no point does the song become stale or excessive. There’s complexity that feels natural here, not a forced “we need to write something nobody has heard before”. Like this is just their natural way of writing music. And it works.
Every song on this album is a standalone piece of artistry. Creativity in various forms. From an odd, yet somehow cohesive, mix of vocal styling, to the varied instruments, tones and effects. The album builds a complex weave of experiences into each track. While I don’t normally post favourite tracks in my reviews, They’ll Miss You is a standout track that just needs mentioning. It blends cleans, shrieks and deep death growls into a brain-bending experience. The instrumentation on the track is chaotic yet somehow melodic. I’m normally put off when a band tries to shove ten pounds of shit into a two-pound bag, making something more complex than it needs to be just to show how forward-thinking they are. I don’t get that impression here. This isn’t another try-hard album to be progressive and different or where the band is “just trying something new” out of boredom. I get a sense that not only was every decision here intentional, but also well planned and even more well executed.
The Bottom Line
If you’re tired of the same old metal or if you’ve been looking for an album that goes a mile off the beaten track in a way that just works, look no further. Sea Sleeper have created something here that can, and should be, described as nothing more than a modern metal masterpiece.
