Legend of the Seagullmen is a supergroup project “featuring Danny Carey of Tool, Brent Hinds of Mastodon, film director Jimmy Hayward (the guy who directed Jonah Hex, Free Birds, and Horton Hears A Who) on guitar, and Pete Griffin of Zappa Plays Zappa and Dethklok on bass, and a few other rippers.”
Mastodon is the most easily recognizable of the internal members’ influences, but I can believe that a guy from Tool is involved too. These songs have a proggy feel, sometimes sludgy, sometimes acoustic, sometimes arpeggiated, with Dave “Doctor” Dreyer channeling Tom Waits on vocals. The atmosphere is as thick as fog in the harbor, There’s some kind of storyline to the album, but hell if I know what it is. The theme is as clear as Caribbean water though; and loaded with vivid imagery of undersea monsters and forces of nature across the eons, where mankind appear to be the most fearsome and destructive, second only to the power of the Seagullmen(?).
There are earworms aplenty, from the primary riff of “The Fogger” to the refrain from “We Are the Seagullmen,” to the boogie of the eponymous track to “The Orca never sleeps.” The song that will get the most future replays from me, however, is “The Curse of the Red Tide,” which pulls out all of the stops with a “House of the Rising Sun” vibe, haunting piano, strings, a deep-voiced chorale in the chorus, and evocative lyrics. The notoriety of the band members will get them attention, it’s this song that will put Legend of the Seagullmen on the map. X will mark the spot.
This wasn’t love-at-first-listen for me, but like barnacles, their sound began to grow on my hull. There’s a lot of depth, and plenty to discover in the fathoms. If you’re listening and feeling the same uncertainty, then I advise you at least check out “The Curse of the Red Tide” before abandoning ship.
