The Surface Seems So Far is Seether’s worst album and this is why:

This album has been out for 4 months. I have listened to it many times over. When making the captions for this video, I STILL had to go to Spotify to remember the names of the songs. Unless the song literally said the title of the song in the chorus, I had to skim through the album to see which chorus belonged to which song. That is utterly fucking mind blowing. This is the most homogenous, indistinguishable body of work I have ever heard.

I have been saying this since the album’s release but I never felt like the words did it justice. Show, don’t tell, right?

From a guitar player’s perspective, I let out an audible groan once per song during my first listen. Anyone with an ear for music picked up this redundancy IMMEDIATELY. I’m sure of it. Guitar players here also instantly recognized the fact that EVERY chorus, barring Regret, is comprised entirely of the same Sus2 chord shape. It’s so goddamn lazy. This is why I struggle to believe the vehemence with which some people defend this album as “one of their best.”

Music is subjective, yes, we all know. But at some point, you have to wonder how much blatant repetitiveness and same-ness it takes before some semblance of objectivity takes over the discussion. I think, generally, most people would agree that songs having choruses this interchangeable and indistinguishable is unanimously a BAD quality for an album. And this is, by far, the worst case of chorus redundancy I’ve ever personally seen, let alone in Seether’s discography. I cannot take anyone who says TSSSF is their “best album” seriously.

I concede that some of these choruses are good, despite the redundant and uninspired chord progressions. I like Try to Heal and Lost All Control’s choruses. If you want to make a case for some of the songs being good, go right ahead. I likely won’t disagree. However, as a body of work, this is indefensibly lazy. I rest my case. Thank you.

(P.S. Shoutout to MysticGuitar77 on YouTube. I screen recorded these off of his channel. He’s been my go-to for guitar covers for many years now.)

(BONUS REDUNDANCY: The bridge in Beneath the Veil is identical to the main riff of Walls Come Down.)