by James Meeks
video by Moses KipKosgei
I was looking for a doctor for my ears. Dr. Dre, Dr. John and even The Doctor from
Doctor Who weren’t cutting it, and I felt my search was hopeless. After what felt like an eternity,
I finally stumbled on the office of Dr. Seahorse, an electronic indie-pop musical duo from San
Diego, CA. Though I questioned some of their practices, the good doctor did impress me with at
least a few techniques.
After visiting Dr. Seahorse, I was prescribed with “Symptoms of Trend.” Now, this is not
an ordinary prescription, but rather the name of the duo’s first album, released in 2008. The
album consists of seven song sessions filled with electronic beats.
aspects were trying to one up each other rather than perform in perfect unity. This internal
discord does not happen constantly, but instead hides inside key moments in the songs —
moments of aural harmony — and pop up unexpectedly, taking a nail to the chalkboard of the
music.
A good example of this is “One with the Weeds.” In this song, sound and voice get along
quite well until the three-minute mark. At that point, the sound performs a solo and goes in a
completely different direction, not even trying to match the style of the first three minutes. The
song changes from drums and what sounds like an electronic echo to strange space sounds. I
understand that solos are supposed to show off the sound capabilities, but I think that the least a
song can do is stay stylistically consistent.
“Invisible Lion” commits the same crime, but more frequently; sound and voice begin
in perfect unity, then the song breaks its stride, going from guitar and snapping to those space
sounds again. It seemed as if the duo could not make up their mind on which direction to go with
the song, so they decided to go with both styles. Sadly, the song suffers, as the two sounds don’t
play well together.
There is but one song — “Reason Why” — that remains in perfect unity for its full
duration. Sound and voice find that perfect niche and stay together the entire time. Squabbling
friends cease their fighting, and find that serene moment when everything is right with the world.
Overall, Dr. Seahorse is mediocre at best, the musically curious can go to
drseahorse.com, where they can listen to the entire album for free.
“Symptoms of Trend” receives a 3 out of 5