Seether: Holding Onto Strings Better Left To Fray

In the press materials for the thoroughly turgid Holding Onto Strings Better Left To Fray—that title only hints at the tedium to come—singer-songwriter Shaun Morgan of South African moan-rock trio Seether muses that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” If that’s the case, then Seether has dibs on being the craziest band in the hauntingly barren, fallow sphere of modern rock. A mainstay on the worst radio station in your town for the past decade, Seether tweaks its sound only the slightest bit on Fray, refraining from dry-humping the decomposed corpse of grunge just long enough to take a half-assed stab at contemporary country on “Country Song.” Actually, “Country Song” is a bit of a misnomer, since this utterly witless, lumbering track sounds like every other Seether song, with only a trace of twang in Morgan’s usual guttural throat gymnastics.