Even though I always ask bands for some text – even the creation of the briefest three-word sub-genre will do – to ground their music in reality just a little bit, I rarely read band’s accompanying blurb completely.

This is part laziness, and part stubborn stupidity, but it’s an approach that has served reasonably well, and changing at this point would just be a drag.

However. Black Seas sent a near-perfect pitch email, with a short snippet of text, some choice quotes, and – buoyant with the pleasure that comes from an easily-legible email – my eyes snagged on the glinting nugget that read “Our principle influences are Scott walker and Felt.” 

Well. I was sold at this point.

Frankly, Black Seas (the song), is the kind of song that broadsides me occasionally, because, at some point (around 1998) I assumed that melodramatic, overblown and theatrical rock would no longer be made. I thought Suede’s Dog Man Star nixed all that.

I was, thankfully wrong. Black Seas is almost perfect: deep, black, tumultuous, warm: perfect for wallowing in and dicing with an emotional death.

Making songs like this are fraught with risk: ludicrousness is only ever a millimetre away. Black Seas succeed at ever turn. Really, this is very terrific.

NB: Black Seas ignores all convention, by creating an eponymous song. Do they know nothing? The only allowed eponymous material that bands can ever produce are debut albums. Get it together, guys.

MORE: soundcloud.com/seasblack