Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces
Fake It has an unpleasant little swagger that works in its favour. The guitar hook is sharp, the rhythm is springy and Shaun Morgan gives the chorus enough bite to keep its catchiness from sounding harmless. Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces is strongest when Seether turn their anger into something that moves.
Like Suicide opens with a heavier, more changeable arrangement. Morgan moves between gritty singing and harsher passages, while the clean and distorted guitar sounds give those shifts a clear frame. The performance is committed, but the song also has enough internal contrast to keep the intensity useful.
Rise Above This offers a much more open melody. Its directness is a strength: the tune communicates determination without needing the surrounding instruments to demonstrate constant aggression. Walk Away from the Sun supplies another welcome change, with acoustic guitar and a more restrained vocal creating a different kind of tension. These songs are important because they give the record a wider emotional range than its title might suggest.
No Jesus Christ takes the most interesting structural risk. The bass-led opening develops gradually, adding elements before the heavier release arrives. Morgan's delivery changes with the arrangement, allowing the song to earn its longer form. It is a more convincing use of repetition than simply returning to a loud chorus several extra times.
Fallen and 6 Gun Quota keep the more physical side active, but the quality varies around the highlights. Some lyrics make their hostility so explicit that they leave little room for interpretation, and a few songs lean on a familiar guitar-and-vocal attack without finding an equally strong hook. The production gives everything presence, which can make those weaker ideas sound more emphatic without making them more interesting.
Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces contains a good album's worth of character, though the strongest passages are easier to recommend than the complete sequence. Its best songs find different ways to channel Morgan's voice, from the sly movement of Fake It to the patient build of No Jesus Christ. That variety is more rewarding than anger alone.
