Sometimes when I walk into a bookstore, I feel like I'm suffocating; the literary world is so vast and far- reaching... how can I hope to even scratch the surface? The world of music can be equally intimidating when one considers the astronomical amount of material being produced on a yearly-- let alone daily-- basis. A sense of futility accompanies certain musical exploration, especially when the bands one is pursuing have been producing for years. Not only is there the need to delve into their new material, but their back catalog looms on the horizon as well, and they beg to be heard in order to properly appreciate the progression of sound.

Many years ago, a friend of mine gave me a tape which has been a treasured possession ever since. Not only did it contain hard- to- find tracks by some of my favorite bands (Samiam and Jawbreaker among them), but it also sampled other bands of similar ilk, one of which happened to be Seaweed. I was immediately struck by the Seaweed tracks, the weight of both sound and intention reaching into the most musically receptive areas of mind and body. I resolved to pursue the band, but somehow became distracted in my mission, despite the intuitive sense that this band's music was a component wholly essential to the completion of my life. Listening to Actions and Indications validates every compulsion I ever felt towards Seaweed, and I suppose I should rejoice in having finally discovered them, albeit late, rather than never at all.

Parallels to Samiam are certainly evident, but I'm reluctant to emphasize them because they unfairly suggest Seaweed draws from others rather than offering their own distinct voice. The two bands are certainly akin in their creation of moody musical landscapes, continuously vacillating between outright despair and glimmers of hope, but never straying far from the haunting pain at the core. Like contemporary Samiam, Seaweed varies their dark and draining assaults by toying with pop sensibility, but it seems that the latter is more successful in this regard. Samiam sometimes focuses so much on the skeleton of convention that they neglect the heart beating inside, but even in Seaweed's poppiest moments (e.g. "Thru the Window"), there's a sense that something substantial is happening.

Additionally, the barren edge of Samiam's music has somewhat diminished over the years, but a song like Seaweed's "Red Tape Parade" demonstrates the band's continued ability to bulldoze the masses when necessary. Actions and Indications contains a healthy balance of both lush and ragged, inspiring and tragic-- the band even includes a supercharged remake of Joy Division's "Warsaw" to reconcile sounds both past and present.

If Seaweed's latest offering is an accurate indication, there is much gold to be found in all of the band's material. And so, as the gods of music continue to spew forth their wonderful musings, it seems that I'll have to backtrack a bit. I've been told before that it's sometimes necessary to travel backwards in order to get ahead, and I have no doubt that, in this case, the maxim's true.

-Kevin Ruggeri