Sea Hags - 1989 - 128kbps torrent

Sea Hags - 1989 - 128k

All Music Guide - 4.5 Stars


Bio:

Sea Hags' mercurial career redefined the art of self-destruction, and the band's short run was over almost before it began — how rock & roll of them. Hailing from Seattle, Sea Hags were formed in 1985 by Ron Yocom (vocals, guitar), Frankie Wilsey (guitar), Chris Schlosshardt (bass), and Adam Maples (drums), who collectively decided to relocate to San Francisco in a bid to get closer to their Hollywood hair metal dreams. Metallica's Kirk Hammett lent a hand in the recording of their first demo, and such was its promise that after signing with Chrysalis Records, production on their eponymous 1989 debut was charged to Guns N' Roses engineer Mike Clink. Processing the sounds of '80s sleaze metal through the Pacific Northwest's distinctly darker and mysterious (and unsuspectingly pre-grunge) sonic aesthetic, the album met with much critical success, but was a commercial flop. Not that it mattered, since the inherently doomed outfit would soon live up to their decadent image by breaking up under acrimonious circumstances (substance abuse, canceled performances, etc.) in the middle of a European tour. To echo their manager's statement at the time: "There's only so far you can get with three junkies and one alcoholic." Tentative plans for a comeback remained just that, and when Schlosshardt suffered a lethal heroin overdose in 1991, Sea Hags were officially no more. Yokom has eluded the media eye ever since, and though Maples was briefly rumored to be Steven Adler's replacement in GNR, it was Wilsey who eventually found a short rock & roll afterlife of sorts, changing his name to Wilsex and joining Stephen Pearcy's Arcade.


Album Review:

Despite the two cities' widely divergent musical cultures, several Seattle-bred musicians (Mötley Crüe's Nikki Sixx, Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan, Faster Pussycat singer Taime Downe, etc.) found fame and fortune after transforming themselves into glamorous, Hollywood hair metal stars; but not the Sea Hags. Maybe their mistake was stopping short while driving down the coast and settling in San Francisco, because the notoriously chemically fueled quartet's only album from 1989, though rapturously received by rock critics, never managed to connect with consumers. In retrospect, and in light of the revealing lessons of grunge a few years later, the more likely explanation is that Sea Hags deeper, darker inclinations (and quite deadlier fuels — i.e. heroin) simply didn't result in the sort of music that the era's party-and-eyeliner-obsessed cock rock masses wanted to hear. Barnstorming opener "Half the Way Valley" is only as lively as its explicit sexual frustration allows (no easy lays for this band, it would seem), and "Doghouse," which arrives hot on its heels with a chugging riff, mid-paced groove, and appropriately whiney vocal delivery, proves even dimmer in outlook and defeatist in story line. With the exception of the subsequent airhead cock rock of "Too Much T-Bone," the aforementioned pairing presages the ensuing material's far more dour and complex preoccupations, including the self-explanatory "Back to the Grind," the memorable start-stop rhythm of "Miss Fortune," the desperate-for-a-fix rush of "All the Time," and the simply fantastic riff of "Under the Night Stars" (too heavy for Hollywood by any measure). All told, they help make this a very unique album for its time and place, and contribute to its having aged surprisingly well, to boot.