If you like relevant, ambitious, genre-defying music, this album is for you. Seeming, the post-industrial project from Alex Reed, has released his third studio album, The Birdwatcher’s Guide to Atrocity.
It’s a politically charged effort that Reed has called “a soundtrack for the revolution.” Tracks like first single “Go Small” attempt to provide some personal reassurance during these chaotic times we live in.
Of note, The Birdwatcher’s Guide features the first on-record vocal appearance in two decades from The KLF’s Bill Drummond. Like all things The KLF, it’s not quite you’d expect. At one point, he exclaims, “Pet a cat.”
On my first complete listen, I am most taken by the song, “The Flood Comes for You,” which has a startling siren-like effect and returns to end-times themes that Seeming explored on first album Madness & Extinction. Reed opens the song with the line, “You’ll drown with me in your melted ice caps.”
Prior to the album release, we heard a handful of singles, including “Go Small” and “Remember to Breath.” Of those, my favorite is “End Studies,” a bombastic, industrial clanger that contains one of the best lines of the year: “The future will be borderless and red and queer and bold.”
You can find The Birdwatcher’s Guide to Atrocity on Bandcamp and Spotify.
