A brilliant blast from the past – and one of those records that makes me wonder how the hell it managed to stay under my radar for so long. Ashes on my head.
Thanks to the new reissue from Kozmik Artifactz, now is the perfect time to pull Seedy Jeezus’ self-titled debut from the shelf and turn the amp up a good notch higher than usual.
Originally released in 2014, this debut is a gloriously dirty collision of ’70s Heavy Rock, Blues, Psychedelia and plenty of fuzz-drenched Stoner Rock. Lex Waterreus on guitar and vocals, Paul Crick on bass and Mark Sibson behind the drums – recorded at the legendary The Tote in Melbourne, with Tony Reed handling engineering, mixing and mastering. And you can hear that raw, sweaty, partly live-recorded club atmosphere all over this record.
“Shakin’ The Fuse” kicks things off with such a tasty riff it could have fallen straight off some lost ’70s Rock record. “Wormhole” then hits the warp drive and shoots us straight into outer space, while Waterreus throws a healthy dose of Zeppelin through the speakers. “Universal Overdrive” serves up a generous helping of Humble Pie attitude, while “Chasing The Dragon’s Tail” sounds like Sabbath took a deep hit, held it in their lungs and decided to take the scenic route. And then there’s “Pick Up” – dirty, loud and packing enough fuzz under the hood to make the neighbours reconsider their life choices.
The real trip, though, begins with “How Ya Doin’”. For almost fifteen minutes, Seedy Jeezus simply let go of the reins. What starts as a relaxed stroll through the psychedelic fields of the early ’70s slowly turns into a gloriously sprawling guitar trip. Waterreus makes his guitar swirl, scream and take off, and suddenly Hendrix seems to be standing in the room. Nature sounds creep into the background and the journey drifts somewhere between a medieval Zeppelin hallucination and a late-night acid jam. Then, out of the darkness, a drum solo emerges. Everything gets louder, heavier and wonderfully out of control – and somehow it all just works. This is where the automatic “F#*( yes!” switch kicks in, leaving you nodding along to the groove and hoping the damn song never ends.
After that trip, “Sun In My Car” feels like the morning after. Six minutes of dirty, grimy Rock’n’Roll that make sure there’s no gentle comedown. Just one final kick in the ass before the needle jumps out of the groove.
“Seedy Jeezus” isn’t polished, it isn’t restrained and it certainly isn’t interested in behaving itself. And goddamn, that’s exactly what makes it so good. This is Heavy Rock played the old-fashioned way: loud amps, big riffs, plenty of fuzz and three musicians simply following wherever the groove takes them. Zeppelin, Sabbath, Hendrix and a generous dose of Australian Rock’n’Roll, sweaty Stoner and gloriously twisted Psychedelic Rock are deeply embedded in the DNA of this record, without it ever feeling like some cheap nostalgia trip.
A freakin' great album, a killer reissue and proof that some riffs simply never get old.
-Helge Neumann
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