New album: Seluah

Seluah are set to release their debut album, a staggering 12 years after their formation, on Karate Body Records next month. After a six year hiatus, Andrew Killmeier, Matt Johnson, Edward Grimes and Andrew Peace reunited in September 2010 to begin recording Red Parole, the follow up to Seluah – their 2002 EP, proclaimed as “one of the best records to ever come out of Louisville”. No mean feat seeing as Shipping News, Rachel Grimes, The Rachels etc. are all considered Louisville artists.

I stumbled upon Karate Body Records during my recent Shipping News infatuation, the post-math rockers appearing on my audio radar via King’s Daughters & Sons, who topped the “coveted” G-Man Album of the Year 2011 list.

The latest release on KBR mirrors Shipping News records in ways, mostly in the fact that the Kentuckians could remove the vocals and still be considered a fine instrumental band. Add Edward Grimes‘ hypnotically dark singing abilities into the mix, and you have yourself a pretty potent concoction. The drummer/vocalist’s former bandmates (Grimes originally drummed for instrumental, alternative chamber group and fellow Kentuckians, The Rachels) Christian Frederickson and Rachel Grimes (who also happens to be Edward’s sister) lend a tender hand/viola/voice on album opener ‘We May Never Make It Home’, “a warning letter of a long maritime Odyssey”.

Recorded at The Funeral Home with Kevin Ratterman (My Morning Jacket, Young Widows, The Broken Spurs), subtle similarities with King’s Daughters & Sons‘ If Then Not When – also engineered by Ratterman – exist merely because the former Elliott drummer’s nimble fingers are all over this record, which sounds at time as if the four Louisvillians are playing in your own sitting room, loud in your sitting room, but intimate nonetheless. ‘Black Sand’, the album’s 8-minute monster, plays like a greatest hits of everything that is good about Seluah: sprawling guitars, ominous words and booming, hit-it-like-its-life-or-death drums, and dramatic shifts in direction to keep us on our toes.

Throbbing menace envelopes Red Parole, but its melodic core, as thin as a piece of string, is as hard – and just as sharp – as an unplucked diamond.

Tracklist:

1. We May Never Make It Home
2. The Other Side Of the Gun
3. Killing The Angels
4. Sail Straight Into The Bombs
5. Black Sand
6. Hell and Back
7. Disengage
8. Elysian Fields

– Red Parole by Seluah will be released on Karate Body Records on 10th April (physical release in U.S. only)
– For those in the area, Seluah play Zanabar in Louisville, Kentucky on April 15th
– The Seluah EP can still be purchased on bandcamp here.

www.karatebodyrecords.com
www.facebook.com/Seluah
seluah.bandcamp.com